Palestinian Commemoration in Israel: Calendars, Monuments, and Martyrs 9780804795203

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Palestinian Commemoration in Israel

Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures

Palestinian Commemoration in Israel CALENDARS, MONUMENTS, AND MARTYRS Tamir Sorek

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2015 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sorek, Tamir, author. Palestinian commemoration in Israel : calendars, monuments, and martyrs / Tamir Sorek. pages cm--(Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8047-9392-6 (cloth : alk. paper)--isbn 978-0-8047-9518-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Arab-Israeli conflict--Anniversaries, etc. 2. Muslim martyrs--Israel--Anniversaries, etc. 3. Palestinian Arabs--Israel--Anniversaries, etc. 4. Collective memory--Israel. 5. Memorialization--Israel. 6. Memorials--Israel. I. Title. II. Series: Stanford studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic societies and cultures. ds119.7.s635 2015 394'.40899274--dc23 2015004813 isbn 978-0-8047-9520-3 (electronic) Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion

For Michelle, Tal, and Noah

CONTENTS

List of Figures

ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction

1

1 Commemoration under British Rule

19

2 The Kafr Qasim Massacre and Land Day

41

3 The Political Calendar in the Twenty-First Century

67

4 Memorials for Martyrs, I (1976–1983)

87

5 Memorials for Martyrs, II (1998–2013)

101

6 On the Margins of Commemoration

119

7 Disciplining Palestinian Memory

139

8 The Struggle over the Next Generation

163

9 Political Summer Camps

181

10 The Quest for Victory

199

11 Latent Nostalgia for Yitzhak Rabin

217

Conclusion

233

Appendix

243

Notes

247

Bibliography

283

Index

301

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1  Percentage of

Arab citizens who reported participating in political events by year, 2003–2012

Figure 2  Cartoon of

7

Lord Balfour holding his declaration on a map

of Palestine

27

Figure 3  Palestinian activist inviting dialog at the March of

Return

in 2014

79

Figure 4  Memorial monument in Jat for the October 2000 martyrs

135

Figure 5  Jewish Israeli support for equality policies for Arab citizens,

2008–2009140 Figure 6  Main sources of

Jews’ and Arabs’ knowledge of the history

of the country

166

Figure 7  Mention of

Zionist and Arab historical figures by main sources of knowledge

167

Figure 8  The most frequently mentioned events by gender and self-

identification

207

Figure 9  The website Arab48 celebrates the sixth anniversary of

the

2006 war

210

Figure 10  Sympathy for various politicians and depth of

connection

with Jews, May 1996

226

Figure 11  Sympathy for Rabin among Jews and Arabs in 1996 and 2005

228

Figure 12  Sympathy for Rabin by level of

229

pride in Israeli identity in 2005

Figure 13  Mention of

Rabin by the extent that the definition “Israeli” fits, 2008 survey

230

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

this book is the fruit of a study that lasted almost fifteen years, through which I have been fortunate to benefit from the support, ideas, and inspiration of many individuals and institutions. Various parts of the study were supported by the Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, the Humanities Scholarship Enhancement Fund at the University of Florida, the Lucius N. ­Littauer Foundation, and a Post-Doctoral Grant by the Ginsberg Fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2006 the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida has been my academic home, and I am grateful for the continuous support I receive from the center and for the congenial environment created by the chair Jack Kugelmass. The last, and crucial, stage of writing was enabled by the Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, which allowed me to dedicate undivided attention to the project throughout my stay in Berlin in 2013–2014. I would like to thank Klaus Eder from the Humboldt University of Berlin for the warm hospitality and the stimulating intellectual environment. Some of the materials published in this book appeared earlier in the form of journal articles or chapters in edited volumes although the updates, additions, and changes created texts that are very different from the original. Chapter 1 is based on the article “Calendars, Martyrs, and Palestinian Particularism under British Rule,” which appeared in Journal of Palestine Studies 43, no. 1, 2013. Chapters 4 and 5 constitute an extension and update of an article I published in Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 2, 2008, titled “Cautious Commemoration: Localism, Communalism, and Nationalism in Palestinian Memorial Monuments in Israel.” Chapter 7 is based on my article “The Changing Patterns of Disciplining Palestinian National Memory in ­Israel,” in States of Exception, Surveillance and Population Management: The Case of Israel/­Palestine, edited by Elia Zuriek, David Lyon, and Yasmeen Abu-Laban, published by Routledge in 2010. The argument in Chapter 10, appeared previously in “The Quest xi

xii  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

for Victory: Collective Memory and National Identification among the ArabPalestinian Citizens of Israel,” in Sociology 45, no. 3, 2011. Chapter 11 is based on my article “Public Silence and Latent Memories: Yitzhak Rabin and the ArabPalestinian Citizens of Israel,” in Israel Studies Review 28, no. 1, 2013. Many of the insights I present in this book were developed with the significant help of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who shared their knowledge or life experience with me, assisted in establishing relevant contacts, helped to refine my arguments, contributed their time and talent to read the text at various stages of its development, and provided useful criticism and valuable comments. I am grateful to Issam Aburaya, Gadi Algazi, Wadi‘ ‘Awawde, Iyad Barghuthi, Linda Butler, Nabih Bashir, Irit Dekel, Hillel Cohen, Honaida Ghanim, Yousef Jabareen, Amal Jamal, Laleh Khalili, ‘Emad Khamaysi, Nabil Khattab, ‘Atef Mu‘adi, Maqbula Nassar, Nasim Jarus, Tamar Rapoport, Keren Or-Schlezinger, Uri Ram, Shira Robinson, Wakim Wakim, Efrat Ben Ze’ev, Elia Zureik, and Tal Ben-Zvi. I am grateful also to the late author ‘Ala ‘Isa who shared with me rare video footage of past commemoration ceremonies in Kafr Qasim. My friend Youssef Haddad skillfully assisted me with the translation from Arabic to English of some especially challenging texts. I would like to thank as well Sammy Smooha who provided unpublished findings from his surveys. I also am grateful to Kate Wahl, my editor at Stanford University Press, and to the copy editor Leslie Rubin, whose editorial suggestions made an important contribution to the clarity of the text. Above all, I would like to thank my wife, Michelle, whom I met when I first began to develop my ideas of investigating collective memory and commemoration among Palestinians in Israel. Throughout the years Michelle has been my most critical reader, commenting on innumerable texts related to this project, and making an important contribution to its quality. I am grateful for both her thoughtful reading and continuous loving support.

Palestinian Commemoration in Israel



INTRODUCTION

the monodrama Herzl Said tells the story of Khaled Majdalawi, a Palestinian history teacher in the Israeli school system. Khaled was a single and lonely man, cautious and obedient. He preferred to cite from textbooks rather than express his own views and feelings. He always carefully followed the official curriculum of the Israeli Ministry of Education and even rejected requests of his students to discuss the painful history of the Palestinian people. One day following a confrontation with a student who accused him of being a “Zionist,” he was suspended and lost his dream of becoming a school principal. Performed in Arabic with Hebrew subtitles, Herzl Said was first publicly presented in summer 2009 at the Eighth Masrahid Festival where it won first prize. The play presents the fear of the authorities, caution, and silence of the Palestinian citizens of Israel (approximately 17 percent of its 8.1 million citizens in 2013) and the difficult conditions under which they construct their historical remembrance. Khaled’s character represents a common type of Arab teacher in the Israeli school system, one shaped by years of strict surveillance under the military government (which lasted until 1966), and then only partly liberalized after its removal. In the play, Khaled engages in a series of dialogues with key figures from his life, including his dead parents and an agent of the General Security Service (Shabak). Beyond telling his personal story, the play considers the impact of the first days of the al-Aqsa uprising in October 2000 when twelve Palestinian citizens of Israel were shot dead by the Israeli police. A year before the play’s public debut, the playwright Iyad Barghuthi invited me to attend a rehearsal in the old city of Acre. After the rehearsal I joined an 1

2  INTRODUCTION

informal conversation between Iyad, the actor Ghassan ‘Abbas, and the director Munir Bakri. This was literally a conversation behind the scenes of the production of commemoration and collective memory. Ghassan voiced concern about the scene in which Khaled lists the names of the victims of October 2000 while the Israeli flag displays on a screen behind him, as if he blames the flag for their deaths. Ghassan wondered whether they were “going too far” in commemorating the event, whether this scene might provoke angry reactions. Iyad and Munir were unsure—and then all eyes turned toward me. As the only Jew in the room, I was asked to assess the extent to which the scene would hurt the sensitivities of Jewish Israelis. I found the situation ironic since I had considered the play itself to be a protest against this selfcensorship exercised by so many Palestinian citizens of Israel. And yet, at the point that the play’s protagonist breaks through the barrier of fear, his creators had become hesitant and wondered whether the barrier should be pushed in a less aggressive way. In the end the scene was left unchanged, but even four years later in an interview in 2012, Iyad remained unsure if this was the right decision. He finds the scene too direct and therefore artistically unrefined, and he is ambivalent about the extent to which he is interested in antagonizing a Jewish audience: I think that the content might annoy people so I said, “Let’s not annoy them so they won’t disqualify the play from the very beginning only because it is critical against the establishment or the Zionist narrative.” But at the same time, when I think about it—let them be annoyed, why not? My buddies and I are annoyed every time we hear a narrative that denies us [ . . . ] I want people to listen and give a chance to a different voice because in my view it has a truth, and anger seals the ears and the eyes shut. To a certain extent, however, I regret this since [I tell myself], “Why do I feel sorry for them at all—let them pay with their nerves, that’s all.” This is part of my dissonance—on the one hand I want to have channels of cultural dialogue, but on the other hand I am really convinced that the channels are actually blocked.1

Khaled Majdalawi’s fear in the play and the moment this fear is conquered are two aspects of a particular phenomenon I investigate in this book—how Palestinians in Israel construct their collective memory and how they display it publicly. Similarly, Iyad’s dilemma over what to include in the play and my own expected role in evaluating the possible reactions to the play, illustrate the interactive and relational nature of this process.

INTRODUCTION  3

The encounters of Palestinians in Israel with the Israeli state apparatus and with Jewish Israeli citizens of Israel, as well as their political status as Israeli citizens, have driven them into three discernible modes of action: (1) caused them to disguise or carefully select their public displays of collective memory out of fear, (2) motivated them to contrast their narrative with the dominant narrative of Jewish Israelis as a form of protest, and (3) inspired a desire for a dialogue with Jewish citizens of the state. Hence, Palestinian commemoration in Israel is at the same time a practice of political protest, a subject of surveillance by the authorities, and a sphere of dialogue with, and defiance of, ­Jewish Israeli citizens and the state. The combination of these factors is reflected in cross-pressures that shape Palestinian commemoration in Israel as cautious and vigilant. Commemoration vacillates between commitments to pan-Palestinian solidarity, emphasizing the uniqueness of Palestinian citizens, as well as blatant defiance and a pacifying tone. While the narrative, historical references, and symbolism of this commemoration have been embedded in Palestinian and Arab contexts, its discursive boundaries have been defined to a large extent by the political status of its producers as Israeli citizens. CITIZENSHIP AND COMMEMORATION

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the subsequent mass expulsions that lasted until October 1950, approximately 85 percent of the Arab Palestinians who had lived in the areas of Mandatory Palestine that ultimately were subjected to Israeli sovereignty were driven outside the borders of the newly established state of Israel. In the process, hundreds of Palestinian villages were completely destroyed, and the larger towns and cities lost most, if not all, of their Arab populations. Between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinian refugees took shelter in the remaining parts of Palestine still under Arab control (the Gaza Strip and the West Bank), as well as in the neighboring Arab countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, as well as elsewhere. These events are known in the Palestinian vocabulary as the Nakba (Arabic: catastrophe), and they constitute the key episode in Palestinian national history. Those 156,000 Palestinians who remained under Israeli rule could not escape the dramatic consequences of the Nakba: about one-sixth of them came from nearby villages that were destroyed and depopulated. Subsequently they became internal refugees; many others lost their lands to Israeli state expropriations even though they remained in their villages; and families were torn apart never again to be reunited. Most Palestinians in Israel suddenly found

4  INTRODUCTION

themselves under strict military rule that dictated most aspects of their lives; and finally, they shared the drastic and sudden devaluation of their status from an established majority in the country to a subjugated and discriminated against minority. While the Nakba has constituted the major anchor of contemporary Palestinian national identity, it has also created borders, both physical and m ­ ental, between Palestinians. Israel prevented the return of those Palestinians who fled or were expelled beyond the armistice line. Those who were able to secretly return were unsafe. After the first Israeli census in November 1948, and the distribution of Israeli identity cards or temporary residence permits, Israeli security forces conducted sporadic searches for Palestinians who, for various reasons, had not registered during the census and therefore were considered illegal aliens and were forcibly expelled across the border.2 Hence, during the first years of the state’s existence, an Israeli identity card (and later citizenship) provided crucial, even if imperfect, protection from expulsion beyond the ­armistice line. Gradually, expulsions stopped, but those without Israeli identity cards still faced difficulties in obtaining jobs, collecting government food rations, or legally marrying.3 Under these circumstances an Israeli identity card became a valuable asset and a means of survival for a member of the Palestinian minority. In 1966 the military government that had been imposed on Palestinians inside Israel was formally removed, only to be quickly exported to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip the following year after Israel’s occupation of those ­territories. Since the beginning of the military occupation that began in 1967, more than half of the Palestinians in the world live under various segments of the “­Israeli control system.”4 The territory under this control system, between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, is ruled by ethnocratic principles that preserve Jewish domination while dividing Palestinians among various subgroups with different levels of civil rights, political rights, and economic opportunities.5 This internal hierarchy places Palestinian citizens in an intermediate political status between Jewish Israelis and Palestinian non-citizens and ensures their relative benefits vis-à-vis their fellow Palestinians. To be sure, Palestinians in Israel suffer from blatant, systemic discrimination,6 but compared to Palestinians who live in the militarily-occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, they are far less vulnerable to arbitrary violations of their rights. As a result, differing existential conditions among the various Palestinian communities have led to a growing discrepancy in the collective self–image of both groups.7

INTRODUCTION  5

Over the long term the salience of citizenship developed beyond merely existential instrumentalism. “In an endeavor to survive,” observed the political scientist Amal Jamal, “Israeli Palestinians integrated components of their national and cultural identity with their new identity as citizens of the state.”8 Furthermore, Palestinian citizens have become part of a political community they share unequally with Jewish citizens. Palestinians in Israel also share various segments of the public sphere with Jewish citizens, albeit awkwardly, such as universities, hospitals, and soccer stadiums. Most adult Palestinians in ­Israel are bilingual and consume Hebrew media. In fact, a 2007–2008 survey of hundreds of members of the Arab elite in Israel (artists, authors, bankers, educators, civil activists, and university professors) found that 75 percent of them read both Arabic and Hebrew newspapers.9 That figure is lower among a representative sample of the general population (survey from 2005), yet 63 percent of Palestinians reported that they read Hebrew newspapers at least irregularly.10 Palestinian exposure to Hebrew radio and television broadcasts is also significant, further supporting that at both elite and popular levels, Palestinians in Israel are highly aware of, and keenly interested in learning, the Jewish Israeli perspective. The main purpose for the consumption of the Hebrew press by the Arab public is not simply gathering information since respondents expressed a high level of distrust in the Hebrew media. Rather, it is based on the need to know what is happening in the immediate social and political environment, especially the positions and arguments developing among Jewish citizens.11 At the same time, as the Palestinian intellectual Azmi Bishara has commented on the Hebrew language used by Arabs in Israel, “The tool has become a part of the person who uses it.”12 In other words, it is very difficult to draw a clear line between purely instrumental use of the language and its implications for identity. These conditions have salient implications on both the content and form of Palestinian commemoration in Israel. First, because they have much more to lose, the level of self-censorship prevalent among Palestinians with Israeli citizenship far exceeds that of other Palestinians. As I explore in this book, this self-censorship has diminished in the twenty-first century, but it has not disappeared. Second, the close proximity and frequent exposure of Palestinians in Israel to the Jewish Israeli perspective makes Jewish Israelis a highly relevant audience for Palestinian commemorative discourse, whether it aims to confront or to engage. Jewish sensitivities have a direct effect on how Palestinians

6  INTRODUCTION

in Israel negotiate a public image of the past, and their familiarity with the Jewish Israeli internal vocabulary enables them to communicate with Jewish Israelis in ways that are unavailable to other Palestinians. The title Herzl Said, for example, refers not only to the founding father of the Zionist movement (which is common knowledge among Palestinians), but also to the Israeli version of the children’s game Simon Says. The title is directed toward both Jewish and Arab audiences, conveying criticism of the authorities of the Jewish state for their expectations that Arab citizens be obedient subjects; at the same time it criticizes the common tendency among Arabs to fulfill this role. POLITICAL CALENDAR AND MARTYRS

This book traces the various ways that Palestinian citizens in Israel have negotiated their collective identity—as both Palestinians and Israeli citizens— through development of historical remembrance, political calendar, and shared martyr­ology. Over the past two decades, dozens of scholarly books about the Palestinian citizens of Israel have been published. Most of them have focused on the political organization of the Palestinians or the policy of the state toward them;13 others examined particular spheres including the economy,14 education,15 the media,16 urban exclusion,17 generational issues,18 the role of intellectuals,19 collaborators,20 cuisine,21 and sports.22 Most of these books have referred to commemoration and collective memory sporadically but did not make it a central theme. This lacuna is significant because as I illustrate in this book, the creation of a political calendar that provides a cyclical structure for political mobilization and a distinct pantheon of martyrs that fuels political protest have both played a central role in the gradual process of post-1948 recovery and empowerment. For Palestinians in Israel, the creation of a political calendar is a form of control over time—an especially valuable asset when control over public space is extremely limited. Furthermore, collective memory can transform historical events into political myths,23 and a collective calendar has a decisive role in this transformation and in maintaining collective identities.24 “As a cycle of holidays specifically designed to commemorate socially marked events,” writes the sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel, “the calendar year often encapsulates the conventional master narratives constructed by mnemonic communities from their history. By examining which historical events are commemorated on holidays, we can identify the most sacred periods in a group’s collective past.”25

INTRODUCTION  7

Let us examine, therefore, what is included in the particular political calendar of the Palestinians in Israel. Among the long list of dramatic events that shaped their history, four commemorations have been gradually canonized on the political calendar: the 1956 Kafr Qasim Massacre (the execution of forty-seven Palestinian citizens who were not aware of a curfew imposed on their village); Land Day in 1976 (a country-wide strike and protest against Israeli government confiscation of Palestinian land, during which Israeli police killed six Palestinians); the October 2000 killing of Palestinians in Israel, and the Nakba. These four events share several characteristics. They have been commemorated annually, for at least fourteen years, with mass processions and extensive coverage in the local and regional Arabic media. All major political streams among the Palestinians in Israel—communist, nationalist, and Islamist26—take part. Finally, these events are commemorated either exclusively by the Palestinians in Israel or in a distinct manner within Israel. Figure 1 illustrates the percentage of Arab citizens who have reported participating in commemorative events since 2003, showing a sharp increase in Nakba Day and Land Day events. In addition, the ratio between those who reported participation in commemorative events and those who joined a general political demonstration has also gradually increased, indicating that the mass participation in political demonstrations is overwhelmingly dominated by commemorative events.

55

50.8 50.1

50

47.9

45 40 35

Participated in a Land Day commemorative event

30 25

28.7

Participated in the Nabka memorial day

20 15 10

17.9 12.9 2003

Participated in legal demonstrations and parades

2006

2009

2011 2012

Figure 1. Percentage of Arab citizens who reported participation in political events by year,

2003–2012

8  INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS COLLECTIVE MEMORY?

One of the theoretical underpinnings of this book is collective memory. The term “collective memory” has been used by different scholars to describe different phenomenon, and this terminological vagueness makes it necessary to clarify my own approach. My use of the term overlaps, in all or in part, with what was termed “historical memory” by Maurice Halbwachs,27 “­appropriated memories” by Karl Mannheim,28 “cultural memory” by Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka,29 and “popular memory” by the Popular Memory Group. Using Halb­wachs’s distinction between autobiographical and historical memory and the parallel distinction made by Mannheim between personally acquired memories and appropriated memories, it is important to emphasize that this book deals only with the latter, namely historical memory which was not personally acquired. A memory of an individual is ‘collective’ not because it is shared by every individual in her/his group but because it was acquired through certain social institutions (family, education system, political ­parties, etc.) which are identified with this group. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, for example, is not part of the autobiographical history of any of the Palestinians or Israelis who live today, but it is certainly part of the historical remembrance of many of them who learned about it as part of growing up as Palestinians or Israelis. Assmann and Czaplicka distinguished between “communicative memory” which includes those varieties of collective memory that are based exclusively on informal, mostly personal everyday communication, and “cultural memory” transmitted through formal cultural formations (rites, monuments) and institutional communication (recitation, practice, observance). The events marked on the collective calendar of Palestinians in Israel are remembered in all these forms, but their mere anchoring in the collective calendar, their “monumentalization,” or their inclusion in formalized curricula, is part of a conscious endeavor to include them in a long lasting cultural memory. Most important, collective popular memory is a contested terrain in the constant struggle over hegemony.30 This terrain is occupied by many actors with various agendas and diverse narratives who compete over the construction of the past. There are real processes of domination in the field of historical remembrance: at any given moment, certain representations achieve centrality, visibility, and prestige; others are marginalized or muted.31 The apparatus of the State of Israel, the various Arab political parties and extra-­parliamentary movements, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Arab local ­councils, Arab and Jewish Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—all these

INTRODUCTION  9

actors, each with its own agenda, have competed over shaping historical remembrance and collective memory among Palestinians in Israel. METHODOLOGY

My methodological choices are informed by the distinction made by the Popular Memory Group between the two main ways a sense of the past is produced: through public representation and through private memory.32 Similarly, the sociologist Jeffery Olick distinguished between two approaches in the study of collective memory: an “individualist” academic culture, which is based on aggregated individual memories and a “collectivist” one that focuses on collective commemorative representations.33 Although individual remembrance and public representations of the past are partly autonomous, they are also mutually dependent because the study of popular memory “is a necessarily relational study.”34 Aggregated private instances of historical remembrance are both products and reflections (even if as a mirror image in certain contexts) of public representations. In this regard, I look carefully for the roads that connect the two. Therefore, I am guided by a holistic approach that considers the production and reception of meanings as interrelated. I utilize diverse research ­methods that examine different aspects of collective memory from different angles and in various spheres with an emphasis on the struggle over meaning between numerous actors. This combination diminishes the risk that methodological choices would overshadow the subtlety of the phenomena under investigation. In addition, I tried to avoid a common tendency to look at 1948 as the starting point of the history of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The contemporary predicaments and challenges of the Palestinians in Israel are the results of a long history, and its roots can be traced back at least to the early days of the Palestinian national movement following World War I. Although Palestinian citizens of Israel have developed a distinct repertoire of collective commemoration, this repertoire cannot be evaluated properly without a reference to its historical development since those days. Therefore, I researched the Arabic press from the 1920s to the 1940s, diaries, memoirs, as well as secondary sources, in order to understand the development of the Palestinian collective calendar and martyrology under the British rule of Palestine (1917–1948). Since the first commemoration on the national calendar of the Palestinians in Israel is the date of the massacre at Kafr Qasim in 1956, I began my investiga-

10  INTRODUCTION

tion of the post-state period from that year. I read the reports covering the four major anchors of the collective calendar in nine Arabic newspapers in Israel from 1956 through 2014, as well as other important dates on the calendar (for an outline of the other dates, see Chapter 6). This path of investigation is especially important from the early 1980s because newspapers in Arabic have been a key element of the independent Arab public sphere in Israel since that period.35 With the beginning of the twenty-first century, the internet emerged as another major sphere of constructing historical remembrance and therefore I searched and followed the references to these events on numerous websites operated by Palestinian citizens of Israel with diverse political orientations. More sporadically, I followed the broadcasts of an Arabic radio station, reviewed memorial books published locally, and educational materials published by the Follow-Up Committee for Arabic Education (FUCAE). In addition, I watched three ceremonies in Kafr Qasim (in 1986, 1999, and 2006) recorded on film. To compare Palestinian historical remembrance inside and outside Israel, I also read two bulletins of Palestinian organizations and one private Palestinian newspaper published outside Israel. While the newspapers and commemorative books provide much insight into the historical development of Palestinian commemoration, they cannot provide the point of view of the state apparatus attempting to suppress, manipulate, or contain it. This perspective can be found in the files at the Israel State Archive. I reviewed relevant correspondence of the Advisor to the Prime Minister for Arab Affairs, the Ministry of Education, and protocols and correspondences of Arab local councils. Obviously, I did not have access to many still-classified documents, and the most recently released relevant material available is from 1984. To understand contemporary modes of surveillance, I drew on my interviews with relevant functionaries and the protocols of the Knesset assembly. A significant part of the investigation of more recent developments is based on face-to-face interviews. Between 2001 and 2014, I conducted more than ninety interviews with key Arab and Jewish “memory actors,” namely, individuals who are directly or indirectly involved in the public struggle over historical remembrance. Among the interviewees were activists involved in organizing commemorative events and Jewish legislators who acted to ban these events; Arab educators who attempted to bring the Palestinian national narrative into public schools and functionaries in the Israeli Ministry of Education who sought to monitor and circumscribe these attempts; and local activists, mayors,

INTRODUCTION  11

journalists, directors of youth summer camps, artists, as well as others.36 Most of these interviews took place at the homes of the interviewees, many others at their workplaces, and a small number in a café. In rare cases, I conducted the interview by phone. The length of most interviews ranged between one hour and two hours. Depending on the circumstances, some of these interviews were recorded and transcribed. In addition, I attended commemorative events in various Arab localities— Land Day events in Sakhnin and Deir Hanna, the memorial procession in Kafr Qasim, al-Aqsa Day in Sakhnin, Memorial Day for the massacre in ‘Aylabun, Memorial Day for the 2005 assault in Shefa‘amr,37 and the March of Return commemorating the Nakba. In 2009, 2011, and 2012, I visited youth summer camps run by two Arab political parties. I followed the production of national historical remembrance in these camps, as well as the governmental attempts to monitor them. During my ethnographic work, as well as during interviews, I faced the challenge of gaining the trust of my direct interviewees or of other people around me. As a Jewish Israeli man who speaks Arabic—with this profile I could have easily been sent by the Israeli Shabak under the guise of an academic researcher38— some of my initial contacts with people was often met with suspicion. Many of my interviewees were public figures who are used to being interviewed (­mayors, members of local councils, authors), a factor that made them less suspicious than the average person. However, in other cases, I had to be creative. First, whenever possible I did not contact people directly but rather through mutual acquaintances with the help of Palestinian friends, some of whom I have known for many years dating back to our student days at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Palestinian social networks are very dense, and in many cases my distance from the actor I wanted to interview, including leaders of the Islamic Movement, was no more than one degree of separation. Second, while contacting organizations I attempted first to gain the trust of the individuals at the top of the formal or informal hierarchy, hoping that they would open other doors for me. This was especially important in my ethnography at one of the summer camps, where one of the members of the camp crew protested my presence in the camp. The acting director who defended my presence won the argument by mentioning the name of a highly regarded person in the party who had invited me to visit the camp. Third, I worked to establish my academic status early in any interaction: I presented myself at the first instance of contact as Dr. Tamir Sorek (Israeli culture

12  INTRODUCTION

is informal and I do not use my title in other contexts), used my business card, repeatedly referred to my American home institution, and provided copies of my published articles. In cases where I expected a high level of suspicion, I brought a copy of my first book in Hebrew to leave as a gift. Obviously, this mode of presentation was more effective when the interviewees themselves had some familiarity with the academic world, at least as students. Although hypothetically these tactics could have been used as well by the Shabak, I was surprised to find how well they lessened suspicion. The frequent interpretation of my publications as sympathetic to Palestinians in Israel in all likelihood was also helpful. With time I learned not to display too much knowledge about their organizations to my interviewees. Although I gained this knowledge from the internet or from other interviews, sometimes it caused them to feel that they were under surveillance, and I learned to restrain my tendency to demonstrate my familiarity with the field. Nevertheless, the challenges of ethnographic research emphasize the need for additional channels of investigation and the examination of additional spheres. Surveys with representative samples provide a bird-eye view of social phenomenon. In July and August 2008 I conducted a nation-wide, questionnaire-based survey of 530 Arab and 515 Jewish citizens in Israel through phone interviews.39 The respondents constituted representative samples of their respective adult populations.40 An individual-centered survey methodology allows for inquiry into how private remembrance correlates with certain social and political orientations, an issue highly relevant to the literature about the collective memory-national identity nexus that rarely has been investigated by this method. These correlations, if found, might be evidence of the replication, reflection, contradiction, or even dialogue between private remembrance and public commemoration. Beyond this survey I analyzed raw data from related public opinion polls conducted between 1996 and 2009 by the Guttman Institute at the Israel Democracy Institute, Modiin Ezrahi, and Dahaf Institute. Finally, a comparison of the Palestinians in Israel to other cases is crucial for developing sociological insights. While this book does not present a systematic comparative analysis, it does reflect sporadically on the parallels and differences between the commemoration among Palestinians in Israel and similar cases. The important task here is to decide what constitutes a similar case. Looking for studies of ethno-national groups that face similar dilemmas and challenges led me to the conclusion that any attempt to classify the political status of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel would have to acknowledge some

INTRODUCTION  13

of the extreme and even idiosyncratic characteristics of their condition. This makes a comparative discussion an especially challenging task. I suggest viewing the Palestinian citizens of Israel as located on the far margins of two categories of cases: “trapped” minorities and colonized peoples. In both categories they stand out as a particularly unique or extreme type. Many of the peculiar dynamics of the production of their collective memory and public commemoration can be understood by taking into consideration their location on this taxonomic juncture. Thus, it is crucial to explain these peculiarities before taking a closer look at this commemoration. PALESTINIAN MEMORY IN ISRAEL AS AN EXTREME CASE

The anthropologist Dan Rabinowitz considers the Palestinians in Israel a “trapped minority”:41 a segment of a larger group spread across more than one state, citizens of a state hegemonized by others and whose political power is limited by their non-affiliation with the dominant ethno-national group. This category includes Kurds in Turkey, Turks in Bulgaria, Russians in the Baltics, Armenians in Azerbaijan, and many others. Implicitly, this concept echoes the sociologist Rogers Brubaker’s “triadic nexus.” Brubaker observed that the collective identities of certain minorities are frequently shaped by the combining influence of a nationalizing state under whose sovereignty they live, an external kin-state (or motherland), and the institutions of the ethno-national minority.42 The Arab-Palestinians in Israel seemingly have several Arab kin-states around Israel (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon). The attachment to these states is mainly in the form of cultural affinity and expressions of solidarity in times of crisis, but it lacks a concrete political dimension. Since 1948 none of these states have seen the Palestinians in Israel as potential citizens as many kin states tend to do.43 Like Kurds, Tamils, and other ethnic groups with sporadic, partial, or unfulfilled national aspirations, Palestinians in Israel do not have an external sovereign kin nation state as a subject of patriotic sentiments. They have been influenced, however, by a vibrant Palestinian national movement whose political, military, and myth-making activities since 1948 mostly have taken place outside the internationally recognized borders of Israel. Looking at other cases of trapped minorities, the development of diverse collective self-images among Palestinians who live in different political contexts is not surprising because formal citizenship rarely remains merely formal. Even when such a minority is politically mobilized, maintaining citizenship is frequently part of the political vision. The geographer Oren Yiftachel defined

14  INTRODUCTION

this form of mobilization as “ethnoregionalism,” which is “ethnonationalism in constraining political and territorial circumstances.” It is distinct from conventional ethnonationalism by its lack of drive for ethnic sovereignty and by the tendency to reconcile ethnic and civil elements of identity. At the same time it is distinct from civil mobilization by its emphasis on the protection of a specific homeland territory and by its demands to restructure the ethnic foundations of the polity and not merely to redistribute its material resources.44 There are many examples of the far-reaching implications of formal citizenship on the collective identity and memory of trapped minorities. Basques in Spain and France, for example, have developed different orientations of identity;45 the status of Hungarian communities as citizens of Hungary, ­Romania, and Slovakia has differential impact on the ways they commemorate the Hungarian national past;46 the commemoration of Bloody Sunday in Northern ­Ireland has become a rhetorical battlefield between Irish Republicans and Catholic leaders supporting constitutional nationalism in Northern Ireland.47 The narrative of the young generation of the Russian-speaking minority in ­Latvia regarding the Soviet conquest of the country is influenced by the official Latvian national narrative, indicating that these Russian-speakers gradually are moving away from the views of their contemporaries in Russia on the Soviet history of the Baltic States.48 Although Rabinowitz presented Palestinians in Israel as a prototypical trapped minority, if we follow his definition strictly, we would find that in multiple aspects they constitute an extreme case, and the peculiar combination of these aspects makes the Palestinians in Israel a unique case: the social boundaries between them and the majority society is particularly rigid; their national narrative is diametrically opposed to the state narrative; their territory is central to the national narrative of their trans-border community; they face an exclusionary nationalizing policy; they are part of a stratified system of an active colonial project; and they face the anxiety over the reversibility of power relations by the settler society. Each of these dimensions of exceptionality or extremity has direct implications on the production of historical remembrance. First, the social boundaries between Arabs and Jews in Israel are exceptionally rigid, with almost no gray area. The number of individuals who would define themselves as both Arab and Jewish in Israel today is negligible. Even when it is done, usually this self-labeling is considered a political statement and is not socially approved. From 1949 until the late 1960s, approximately 900,000 Jews immigrated to Israel from Arab countries. There is a scholarly debate as to what

INTRODUCTION  15

extent the title Arab-Jews was relevant to this population before the immigration,49 but there is no doubt that by now most of the third generation does not speak Arabic and firmly rejects the Jewish-Arab label. The combination JewishPalestinian is even less common.50 A crucial indicator for the social distance between Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel is the lack of intermarriage between them. While intermarriages affects approximately one in four ethnic Hungarians in Romania,51 one out of ten Kurds in Turkey,52 more than 40 percent of the ethnic Russians in Latvia,53 and one out of ten couples in Northern Ireland at the end of the twentieth century,54 the number of Arab-Jewish mixed marriages is negligible. Family is an important site for the production of vernacular national narratives, and when intermarriage is common there is more room for developing alternatives to “zero sum game” national narratives commonly produce by elite rhetoric. The diametrically opposed elite narratives in Transylvania, for example, are frequently not reproduced in the nuclear mixed Hungarian-Romanian families.55 The almost complete absence of mixed families in Israel significantly diminishes the opportunities for the development of these alternative narratives. Second, the level of alienation of the Palestinians in Israel from the official state narrative is incomparable to most other cases. Diametrically opposed historicization might characterize the experience of trapped minorities in general.56 There is no other case, however, where the total contradiction and the zero sum game relations between the narratives are as extreme as in the IsraeliPalestinian case. In the common Palestinian national narrative, the creation of the State of Israel is the direct cause for the destruction of Palestine. Although the creation of Northern Ireland was done against the will of most of the local Catholic population, it was not followed by the uprooting of 85 percent of them. Unlike the Nakba for the Palestinians, the Irish civil war is only one event in the long chain of Irish national history. Similarly, there is no existential contradiction between the founding mythology of Estonian and Russian nationalism. The disagreement is about specific historical episodes, not about the actual existence of the other nation. The Kurdish national movement in Turkey demands self-determination but does not consider the mere existence of the Turkish republic as a terrible injustice. Therefore, while the production of a counter-hegemonic memory by a trapped minority frequently has the potential to be perceived as challenging the very legitimacy of the state,57 in Israel the production of this memory is seen frequently by Jewish citizens as an existential threat.

16  INTRODUCTION

Furthermore, unlike Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan where the Russian minorities are either not allowed or are unable to form their own independent parties, Palestinians in Israel do have ethno-national parties represented in the parliament, but they lack any practical political power. Since the end of the twentieth century, parties representing the minority ethno-national groups in Northern Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and other countries have been part of the ruling coalition at least part of the time. A parallel scenario in which an Arab party joins the Israeli government belongs to the realm of fantasy. Thus the inability to influence the allocation of material resources has pushed Arab members of parliament to overemphasize themes of identity and national narratives. The third dimension of exceptionality of the Palestinians in Israel is the status of the territory they inhabit in the collective narrative of their national community. Trapped minorities differ in the relative importance of their territory in the canon of their kin state or their broader ethno-national community. There is a difference between minorities who live in territories with little importance to the core national narrative, such as Russians in the Baltic states, and Hungarians in Transylvania, a territory that has a respectable status in the Hungarian national mythology.58 Here, again, Palestinians in Israel are located on the extreme edge of a continuum. Pre-1967 Israel is considered in the Palestinian vocabulary as the dakhil (Arabic: inside). In the Palestinian national canon of poetry and literature, this territory is the subject of longing and passion, especially among the secular elements that dominated the Palestinian national movement until the early 2000s. The location of the Palestinian citizens of Israel at the core territory of the Palestinian national mythology carries the potential for tense disputes with Jewish citizens. Fourth, Israel has never attempted to assimilate Palestinians. Rogers Brubaker distinguished between assimilationist and differential nationalizing discourse and practice,59 and Israel’s policy toward its Arab citizens belongs to the latter category beyond any doubt. Palestinian citizens were even encouraged to maintain a separate education system in their own language (up to high school level), as long as the content was supervised by the state. In the long term, the reluctance of the state to truly “Israelify” its Arab citizens contributed to their alienation from the state and to the development of a separate national identity and collective memory. Fifth, beyond being a trapped minority, the Palestinians in Israel can be considered an indigenous dispossessed colonized group, like Native Americans

INTRODUCTION  17

in the United States and Canada, aboriginal people in Australia, or Maoris in New Zealand.60 As such, their collective memory is dominated by themes of dispossession and humiliation, themes that are tightly linked to concrete political demands in the present and that further intensify the struggle over the representation of the past. Here, again, the Israeli-Palestinian case is at the margin of the category. Israel is not a typical colonial project, since it lacks a metropole; economic gains were not an important drive for colonization; and the settlers shared a pre-existing proto-national identity. However, the most important distinction for analyzing the construction of historical remembrance is that the colonial element in Zionism is still active. Land allocation and investment in infrastructure by the state are still subjugated to the unilateral aspiration to strengthen the power of the settler community.61 Under these circumstances the lines between protest over past and present dispossessions are especially blurred. Furthermore, since 1967 millions of Palestinians who are not citizens live under Israeli military occupation, which by itself ensures the continuation of the colonizing project. Palestinians in Israel constitute a minority only if we consider Israel in its pre-1967 border as a separate political unit, an assumption which is increasingly challenged by scholars who suggest that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea there is one state in which Palestinians are dominated by different means.62 The numbers of Arabs and Jews in this territory are roughly equal. Even if we do accept that this territory should be analyzed as a single political system, the numerical inferiority of Palestinians among Israeli citizens is meaningful and relevant for understanding their political discourse and practice because most of them do take seriously their Israeli citizenship. Therefore, the comparison to other trapped minorities is still pertinent. None of the other trapped minorities is embedded in such a fragmented and stratified system of control. Finally, unlike native communities in the United States and Australia, Palestinians in Israel have to deal with the anxiety of the settler community over the reversibility of the demographic ration and the power relations. The Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling argued that the Zionist settlement enterprise has been seen as a process that could go in only one direction—that of increasing control over territories. Decreasing control has been considered likely to initiate decolonization, in a manner similar to the “domino theory.”63 In the case of the remembrance of 1948 and the issue of Palestinian refugees, the concern of reversibility is even greater than in the case of retreat from a certain piece of land. Since actual return of the refugees would mean the end of Jewish

18  INTRODUCTION

dominance and control in Israel/Palestine, even the slightest symbolic gesture raises the fear of entering a slippery slope that would end Jewish national sovereignty. Therefore, while the celebration of the indigenous narratives that negate the “founding moments” of the nation can be tolerated or ignored by the dominant groups in the United States and Australia,64 in Israel this Palestinian counter-narrative has been frequently followed by anxious reactions. •

•

•

The year 1948 is both the time of the birth of the State of Israel and the year of Nakba, but it is also the time when “the Palestinian citizens of Israel” began to emerge as a political and social category. Their pre-1948 past has immediately become specific contested terrain: the state made an effort to disconnect its Palestinian citizens from their pre-1948 national history, and to make pre-1948 national martyrology and memorial days be forbidden knowledge. At the same time Palestinian intellectuals have tried to bring these elements back to the public sphere. Our journey begins, therefore, with exploring Palestinian national commemoration under British rule.

1

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

on 1 may 1921, a series of violent clashes broke out in the Jaffa and Tulkarm regions of Palestine and resulted in the death of hundreds of Jews and Arabs— the largest and most violent confrontation in the Palestinian-Zionist conflict to date. These clashes were the latest incidents amid the growing unrest after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that promised Britain’s support for the Zionist project and the subsequent British occupation of Palestine. In 1923 on the second anniversary of the Jaffa/Tulkarm riots, Palestine’s leading newspaper at the time Filastin ran a front-page editorial with the headline “Martyrs’ Day” (yawm al-shuhada), which read in part: It has been two years since the day pure blood flowed out of us, since the day pure souls passed. We were inattentive to what was going on until that day when we were awakened in the morning by the roar of bullets. Our revival was poor in all that other revivals are rich. Since that day, however, it became rich in martyrs, abundant with memorial days. One hundred brave sons of Palestine became martyrs (istashhadu) and they were not aggressors—and now Palestine considers them as having died for the sake of salvation. Martyrs are an inevitable component of the revival of nations. They breathe life into them. Memories, sweet and bitter, are another inevitable component, for they provoke reviving nations to action and renew their determination. And if days start to look alike and become forgettable, we have one guiding day that we will not forget, one day that is stained with blood, crowned with blackness. The memory of that day awakens in us all that went dormant; it restores what went lukewarm in our enthusiasm and pushes us forward. That day is 1 May, Martyrs’ Day. 19

20  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

In his attempt to establish 1 May 1921 as a historic turning point in the Palestinian collective consciousness, Filastin’s editorialist was clearly aware of the political role of martyrdom and collective calendars in the creation of a national identity and was actively nurturing a Palestinian/Arab national identity under British rule. The political boundaries imposed on the Palestinians following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I eventually were adopted as boundaries of political identity. These postwar boundaries came with a demographic threat, phrased in the Balfour Declaration, and resulted in the politicization of a Palestinian particularism. This emerging emphasis on Palestinian identity coexisted with other collective identities, such as religious and local identities, Ottomanism,1 as well as Arab nationalism. Depending on circumstances and context, these identities can either complement each other or compete for importance and priority. Overlapping identifications were very common, and the boundaries between Arab and Palestinian nationalism were especially fluid. That said—various forces in Palestinian society gave differential weight to each element. Palestinian particularism refers here to the tendency to prioritize Palestinian solidarity over other identities, not an aspiration to substitute one for the other.2 The invention of modern nations frequently relies on pre-existing markers of identity such as religion, language, shared myths about the origins and history of the group, daily customs, or cuisine. The Arab inhabitants of Palestine did not share the same religion (most of them were Muslim, but there was a sizable and influential Christian population), and their language and daily culture did not differ much from the Greater Syria region in general. Pre-modern elements of Palestinian collective memory, such as the shadow of the crusades and the glory of Saladin’s victory,3 constituted only useful raw material for the production of a national identity. To transform Palestine from a regional category into a political category, requiring commitment and mutual solidarity, there was need for a more elaborated imaginative process. This is why calendars and martyrs had special appeal to Palestinian nationalists. These elements aimed to unify Muslims and Christians, villagers and urban dwellers, and diverse geographical regions, while at the same time nurturing a distinct Palestinian collective identity. Although martyrs and political calendars also serve to cultivate Arab nationalism or Islamic pride in Palestine, martyrs and the invention of new calendars were less crucial for nurturing these identities.

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 21

AN EMERGING CALENDAR

Following the British takeover of Palestine in 1918, about fifteen political clubs were founded by upper-class Muslims and Christians in the major Palestinian towns. These clubs were named the Muslim Christian Association (MCA), and they formed a national body, the Palestine Arab Congress, which opposed the Balfour Declaration and Zionist immigration. Although other organizations, such as the Literary Forum and the Arab Club took part in this opposition, the latter two were Palestinian branches that were part of a broader regional network whereas the MCAs were a local Palestinian phenomenon. In addition, the institutions established by the MCAs played a leading role in the political mobilization of Arab Palestinians. Therefore, some scholars consider these associations as the first manifestations of a national movement among the Arabs in Palestine.4 All three organizations, though, provided the stage for the first documented attempts by Palestinian elites to establish a national political calendar. Following the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule toward the end of World War I, ­Faysal al-Hashimi established a short-lived Arab government in Syria with British approval; and for a short time, leading Palestinian intellectuals saw the future of Palestine as part of this new political entity. In spring 1919, the author Khalil Sakakini suggested to the members of the Jerusalem chapter of the MCA that the date the anti-Ottoman Arab revolt was launched (9 Sha‘aban in the hijri calendar) be celebrated annually as an independence day of the Arabs.5 Sakakini, a Christian Palestinian, reported that he had to convince his fellow Christian members of the MCA that this was an event with national significance, which should concern not only Muslims. That year the MCA, the Literary Forum, and the Arab Club in Jerusalem celebrated Independence Day (which happened to be 9 May that same year). Sakakini, who attended the ceremony at the Arab Club in Jerusalem, reported that it included speeches, musical performances, and the singing of the Arab national anthem, which Sakakini himself had written (Ayuha al-mawla al-‘athim). The British military governor of Jerusalem, Ronald Storrs, attended the event.6 Although the celebration of Independence Day did not become a long tradition, it is one example of many elite attempts to establish a political calendar during the British Mandate period. The dates on this calendar had diverse origins and fall into two main categories. One category includes those that grew out of the politicization and nationalization of traditional holy days. In this category only one attempt succeeded beyond regional and factional divisions: the

22  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

Nabi Musa festival. The other category includes those dates commemorating recent politically significant events. The most salient commemoration in this category is the annual protest against the Balfour Declaration on 2 November. Another relatively successful initiative was the Memorial Day for three Palestinians executed by the British authorities in 1930, a commemoration that was observed annually for four consecutive years. Nabi Musa Festival

The Nabi Musa festival included a procession from Jerusalem to a shrine traditionally believed to be the tomb of the prophet Moses. Pilgrimages to the shrine have been recorded since the late thirteenth century,7 but the Nabi Musa festival was fixed to the date of Easter in the Eastern Orthodox calendar and became an official, civic, public event only in the nineteenth century.8 With the emergence of an organized political opposition to Britain’s Jewish national home policy, it became an important site of protest. In 1920 the procession devolved into violent riots, in which five Jews and four Arabs were killed. Following these events, Sakakini wrote in his diary: “Until now the Muslim and Christian holidays were religious, but last year and this year they appear to be national holidays.”9 Some scholars see the 1920 riots in Jerusalem as the first anti-colonial eruption in the history of the Zionist–Palestinian conflict;10 however, at this point the struggle was defined in terms of opposition to British policy and Zionist aspirations and as displaying Arab national identification but not necessarily in terms of defending the nationalist idea of Palestine.11 It was in subsequent years, especially between 1929 and 1936, that the annual festival gradually became an idiom of Palestinian national identity.12 The “nationalization” of the Nabi Musa festival was reflected in the extension of the social groups that participated in the procession, both geographically and demographically. From an event that initially attracted participants from the greater Jerusalem area, it was extended to include a wider area of central and southern Palestine with participants from Jaffa, Ramleh, Lydda, Gaza, Nablus, and even from the Beersheba region.13 In other words, the new participants came from different regions of Mandatory Palestine but not from neighboring Arab countries. In addition, Christian participation expanded, a significant development given the popular association between the Nabi Musa holiday and the struggle against the crusaders. A popular tale circulated that Saladin had initiated the holiday in response to the large number of Christian pilgrims who visited Jerusalem for Easter ceremonies during the years of the Crusader control of the city

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 23

(1099–1187).14 The increase in Christian participation, therefore, implies that the meaning of the holiday was reshaped to support Muslim-Christian solidarity. The presence of Christians and the absence of Jews marked the emerging socio-political division of the country—Arab-Palestinians against Jews. As historian Eddie Halabi writes: “For the Arabs who witnessed this procession, the image of Christians and Muslims marching in unison, singing patriotic anthems, served as a ‘model for reality,’ a discursive construct that portrayed the elite as leading a modern nationalist movement free of communal discord.”15 By the early 1930s the Nabi Musa banner itself had been transformed into a nationalist symbol, from a green cloth bordered in gold to a version of the green, red, black, and white Arab national flag,16 with an embroidered Dome of the Rock17—a symbol that can represent both Palestinian particularism and Islam—at its center. In addition to Nabi Musa, several other traditional holidays, pilgrimages, and events from Islamic history offered opportunities to politicize and nationalize the Palestinian calendar, most notably the Nabi Salih festival north of Ramallah and the birthday of the prophet Mohammad (Mawlid al-Nabi). The latter was celebrated especially in the Haifa region,18 and the Haifa-based (Christian-owned) newspaper al-Karmil even “deconfessionalized” the holiday by having it commemorate “the birth of the honorable Arab prophet.”19 In 1936 Filastin explicitly called for the instrumental use of religious holidays to promote national socialization (arguing that this is what the Jews do) and suggested including Easter in the list of commemorations in addition to the Nabi Musa festival.20 The Battle of Hittin (4 July 1187) in which Saladin defeated the crusaders was celebrated from 1932 to 1937 by the pan-Arab Istiqlal party (established in 1932).21 The party presented the battle as a victory of the East over the West to include the Christian population in the national community. However, none of these commemorations ultimately had the resonance of the Nabi Musa festival, failing to gain relevance beyond specific regional or partisan boundaries or draw widespread participation from all over Palestine. The increasing importance of Nabi Musa during the British Mandate period is not only a derivative of the religious and political centrality of Jerusalem. It is related as well to the relative power of Haj Amin al-Husayni, who was the most influential Palestinian leader during this period. His rise to power is directly linked to the Nabi Musa riots in 1920, where he delivered an anti-­ Zionist speech. In the aftermath of the riots, he fled to Damascus and was tried in abstention by the British authorities but later, in an attempt to co-opt him,

24  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

they gave him amnesty and nominated him as the Grand Mufti, the foremost position of Islamic authority in Palestine.22 In 1922 he was elected as president of the Supreme Muslim Council (SMC), an institution created by the British High Commissioner. The SMC enjoyed the control of considerable resources based on waqf assets,23 which enabled al-Husayni to orchestrate the Nabi Musa celebration and to expand it from a local to a national event. In this way the annual pilgrimage became an instrument for establishing the leadership status in Palestinian society for al-Husayni and the SMC. These resources were unavailable for other political forces that competed over leadership.24 The SMC also benefited from the policy of the British authorities that tolerated many of its activities as part of its co-optation efforts. For fifteen years the SMC kept a delicate balance between mobilizing opposition to the pro-Zionist British policy and satisfying Britain by regulating this opposition. The balance ended during the Arab Revolt (1936–1939), during which British rule in Palestine faced a nationalist uprising demanding independence and an end to Jewish immigration. The revolt opened with a six-month-long general strike and devolved into armed rebellion. In 1937 British authorities terminated Amin alHusayni’s control of the SMC, and he fled the country before being arrested. In a parallel path, they imposed severe restrictions on the Nabi Musa pilgrimage and practically neutralized its nationalist character. The exile of al-Husayni, the dismantling of Palestinian political institutions, and later the food shortage during World War II had a detrimental effect on the festival,25 and it was never celebrated again with the same magnitude. Balfour Day

Writing in his diary during the Nabi Musa festival on 17 April 1919, Sakakini reflected on the difference between Jewish and Arab holidays. He noted that the former were “created as memorial days for tragedies” and resulted in “dulled” senses and “pain and sadness,” whereas Muslim holidays are “exciting” and left the Muslim “full of enthusiasm and energy.” He then added: “A nation whose holidays include only crying has no future.”26 Sakakini could not foresee that Palestinians would soon accumulate many memorial days commemorating tragedies and death—the days of remembrance that constitute the pillars of their national calendar even today. In this regard, Ernest Renan’s observation that “defeat and mourning have greater importance for the national memory than victories,”27 diametrically opposed to Sakakini’s, would seem more apt, given their effectiveness in mobilizing for struggle. Thus

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 25

the incorporation of tragedies (which in the Palestinian case concerned recent events) into the collective Palestinian narrative was part of the discursive nationalization of Palestinian identity. In arguing his case to the MCA for commemorating Independence Day, Sakakini noted that “the Jews are already celebrating their independence since the Balfour Declaration.”28 Indeed, from 1918 through World War II, the Zionists in Palestine had made 2 November, the date the declaration was issued, a national holiday.29 For the Arabs of Palestine, the Balfour Declaration could only be a tragedy, and soon it became commemorated as such—the first of the tragic commemorations that have since marked their calendar. Although the protest against the declaration began shortly after its publication, the formalization of cyclical annual protest under the title Balfour Day did not begin until 1921. The main choreographer of Balfour Day was the Arab Executive, a committee first elected by the third Arab Congress in 1920, which played a role in leading the Palestinian national struggle until 1934. Remarkably, although in 1919 “Independence Day” was celebrated according to the hijri Islamic calendar, Balfour Day—as other new memorial days suggested by Palestinian leadership in the mandatory period—was scheduled according to the Gregorian calendar. Unlike the Nabi Musa festival, Balfour Day had no religious significance and was equally shared by Muslims and Christians. Therefore, it was more compatible with the cross-sectarian ideological orientation of the MCA and the Arab Executive. On Balfour Day 1923, for example, Jaffa’s MCA organized an event where Christians were invited with Muslims to Jaffa’s Great Mosque to celebrate the “participation of the Muslim and Christian brothers in the Jihad for saving the country.”30 From 1921 until 1947, 2 November was marked by a general strike (though sometimes for as little as two hours). Shops were closed, newspapers were printed with black borders, and buildings were decorated with black crepe.31 Press headlines announced the “Black Day of Palestine” and “The Declaration of Injustice and Tyranny.” The British authorities opposed the Balfour Day strike and in some years even tried to prevent it. Partly as a result, the Arab Executive did not always announce it officially but even when it did not, there is evidence of spontaneous annual strike initiatives, for example, by students in Arab schools (sometimes disobeying their principals).32 Balfour Day was observed as well in neighboring Arab countries. Strikes, demonstrations, and riots took place in Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Egypt. In this regard, Balfour Day was not only a Palestinian observance but an

26  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

element in the calendar of pan-Arab solidarity. Protest demonstrations in Palestine, however, were not limited to the major urban centers but took place in smaller towns all over the country as well. No less important was the fact that these demonstrations were reported in the press and allowed Palestinians from different parts of the country to know that they shared the same experience, as Palestinians. Integral to the Balfour annual protest was the concrete demand that Britain end its commitment to the Zionist project. Opposition to the Balfour Declaration required action, and the collective body that was expected to act was the imagined community of Palestinians. A page-wide, black-framed announcement in Filastin on 2 November 1929 captures this idea in nine lines: “The Balfour Declaration: / Outrageous injustice—shameful iniquity / A Blot of Shame in the 20th century’s history/Great Britain:/Must efface this shame that harms its interests and contaminates its dignity / The People of Palestine:/Must actively work for this goal by: / (1) Not selling land to Jews/(2) Encouraging patriotic [wataniyya] commerce and production.” A similar message appeared on Balfour Day in 1931 in al-Jami‘a al-‘Arabiyya, the SMC’s mouthpiece: O Palestinians! Remember the notorious Balfour Declaration on 2 November and unify your efforts . . . to abolish this abusive commitment and to achieve your liberty and independence [ . . . ] O Arabs and Muslims in East and West! Remember Palestine the martyr (al-shahida) and do not forget your sacred sites there and its history with many pages of glorious, dignified, and courageous battles.33

Again, Palestinians were called on to translate their remembrance into a collective action aimed at achieving their independence. Arabs and Muslims elsewhere are expected only to express solidarity. This emerging political cartography was both verbally and visually highlighted by Filastin in the reports on Balfour Day in 1932. The main headline stated: “A general strike throughout the country in protest over the notorious Balfour Declaration and the ongoing colonial policy.” The issue provided detailed reports on the protests in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tulkarm, Haifa, Acre, Jenin, Lydda, and Nablus. There was also a brief report on the strike in Beirut and a strike of Arab students in Damascus.34 The sense of a Palestine united in simultaneous protest conveyed by these reports was reinforced by the cartoon appearing on Filastin’s front page, which

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 27

portrayed Lord Balfour himself at the center of a map of Palestine holding his declaration (Figure 2). Arrows from the declaration lead to various scenes representing Zionism’s gains achieved under the protection of British military force. These include arriving Jewish immigrants, Jewish factories and mechanized agriculture, the Department of Public Works,35 and two major Jewishowned concessions (the Rutenberg electricity project and the Dead Sea mining project). Also depicted are a Palestinian peasant family uprooted by Zionist land purchases and a group of urban Arabs heatedly arguing, presumably over British policy, instead of acting against it. The Istiqlal party attempted to extend the circle of participants in Balfour Day in Palestine to express their pan-Arab nationalist ideology. During the first Balfour Day ceremony organized by the party in Nablus in 1932, delegations from Transjordan and Syria were invited. Sakakini, who attended the event, found this noteworthy and in a letter to his son he commented that the attendance of these delegations was unprecedented.36 During the 1936–1939 revolt in Palestine, political leaders were arrested, exiled, or fled. The Arab Higher Committee (AHC) that was established at the beginning of the revolt was outlawed seventeen months later and was practically paralyzed. The demoralizing effect of this institutional breakdown was worsened by the violent factional clash among Palestinians. Press censorship

Figure 2. Cartoon of Lord Balfour holding his declaration on a map of Palestine. Source: Filastin,

2 November 1932

28  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

­ ecame stricter after the beginning of the revolt and even more so during b World War II. As a result, there was a drastic decline in the visibility of public formalized Palestinian commemoration in the 1940s. The public commemoration of Balfour Day was almost unnoticeable during most of the war years. Only with the re-establishment of the Palestinian Arab Party in 1944 were the commemorative patterns renewed.37 In 1945, after the war, the country-wide strike was renewed. Facing reports of two international commissions of inquiry (the Anglo-­American committee in 1946 and the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine [UNSCOP] in 1947) and the growing sentiment that a decision on the future of the country was imminent, Balfour Day’s political relevance became particularly evident. We can learn from press reports about the atmosphere on the Palestinian street (or at least the atmosphere desired by the Palestinian press) during Balfour Day, such as the following description of the strike in Jaffa in 1946 that appeared in al-Difa‘: On the day of the notorious Balfour Declaration the city was striking completely. The strike included all the sectors and public movement stopped ­completely. Retailers, stores, and institutions were closed. The streets were emptied of cars, coffee shops and restaurants were closed, and people gathered in public places. Yesterday, the notorious day of remembrance, not a single person departed from the national consensus [ . . . ] the residents of the neighboring villages participated in the strike, transportation between them and the city stopped, and the villagers avoided coming to the city.38 NATIONAL MARTYROLOGY

Formulators of modern secular ideologies in the Middle East adopted a rich arsenal of Islamic symbols and concepts, such as jihad (utmost effort in a religious context),39 and borrowed as well the concept of Islamic martyrdom.40 Because Christian themes have pervaded Palestinian culture and the discourse of the literary classes, Christian images of martyrdom, and especially the crucifixion, also became part of the cultural tool kit of both Christian and Muslim Palestinians.41 The Ottoman Empire, which adopted European institutional and symbolic elements in the nineteenth century (e.g., civil courts, architectural style), was influenced as well by the growing importance of national martyrdom as an element in the construction of political identities.42 In this context, the traditional meaning of sacrificing oneself for God was secularized, and the modern

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 29

s­ hahid/şehit (“martyr” in Arabic and Turkish, respectively) was seen as sacrificing himself for the Ottoman nation. Palestinian national martyrology was developed in these political-cultural conditions. For the Arab inhabitants of Palestine in the first decades of the twentieth century, the nation, for which the martyrs were supposedly dying was fluid and changed with evolving political circumstances. For example, before World War I, national feeling in Palestine often took the form of Ottoman patriotism,43 for example, when Is‘af al-Nashashibi, a young poet from a notable Jerusalem family, described those killed in the 1909 Ottoman counter-coup against the Young Turks as shuhada’ (martyrs) for the “Ottoman nation.”44 During World War I, the emerging Arab national movement embraced as martyrs those activists from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine who were hanged by the Ottoman military in 1915–1916.45 Although their deaths appear to have been less widely and enthusiastically commemorated in Palestine than in Syria and Lebanon,46 there is anecdotal evidence of commemoration there as well, even if not as institutionalized as in Damascus. In March 1919, shortly after the first Palestinian Arab Congress (which considered Palestine part of Greater Syria), Jaffa’s Arab Club sponsored a play about the tyranny of Jamal Pasha. The play ended with the actors waving the Arab flag in front of the corpses of the 1916 martyrs and with the audience joining them in singing the Arab national anthem.47 While the commemoration of the 1916 martyrs was part of pan-Arab or at least pan-Syrian emerging mythology, for some intellectuals in the same ­period, Palestine had become a place worth dying for. In April 1918, five months after the Balfour Declaration, a large map of Palestine was prominently displayed at the Rashidiyya School Club in Jerusalem, inscribed with the following lines of poetry: “The Blessed Land of Palestine / Is the land of the sons of Ya‘rub48 / O the best land of all, do not despair / I have other love but you / We shall sacrifice our souls for your sake. . . . ”49 Later, with the French occupation of Damascus in July 1920 and the end of the Greater Syria adventure, Arab Palestinians (many of whom had been enthusiastic backers of Palestine as southern Syria) increasingly articulated their political identity in more local Palestinian terms.50 The inter-communal violence in early May 1921 provided the emerging Palestinian local patriotism with its necessary protagonists for building its own martyrology.51 The Muslim Christian Association in Jaffa looked after the city’s Arab victims and took the lead in organizing joint Muslim-Christian religious ceremonies. Indicative of the conscious effort to reach beyond the localities

30  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

directly involved, the Jaffa chapter published a call for all MCAs throughout Palestine to collect donations for the injured and the families of those killed.52 Besides the ecumenical religious ceremonies, which provided an opportunity to demonstrate Muslim-Christian fraternity, delegates from each community participated in the religious ceremonies of the other side. The speakers in these inter-religious visits emphasized the common fate of Christians and Muslims in the face of the Zionist threat.53 The adoption of the term “martyr” to describe those who died in the conflict was gradual. Immediately after the riots, for example, Filastin described the Muslim and Christian dead as qatla (those who were killed). On the fortieth-day commemoration,54 the same newspaper used the terms dahaya (victims) and shuhada’ (martyrs) interchangeably. On the first anniversary they were referred to as victims, but by the second anniversary (1923), as already noted, Filastin not only uniformly presented them as martyrs but advocated the creation of an annual Martyrs Day to commemorate them. The 1930 Martyrs

Although Filastin in 1921 had created an early rhetorical link between martyrs commemorated and Palestine, it had not explicitly described them as patriots who died for Palestine. Moreover, no attention was paid to the martyrs’ personal identities: their names were not even mentioned in the press. The individualization of martyrology, which allows a more focused glorification of the martyrs and greater emphasis on their motives, had to await the high-profile executions of three Palestinian men on 17 June 1930. On that day, Muhammad Jamjum and ‘Ata al-Zir of Hebron, and Fu’ad Hijazi of Safad—the first “­national Palestinian martyrs”—were hanged by the British for taking part in the massacre of Jews during Thawrat al-Buraq (the Buraq Revolt) in August 1929.55 One of those hanged, Fu’ad Hijazi, was quoted extensively in the Palestinian press for his explicit references to martyrdom. According to family members and prison cellmates, he had declared his intention to die for the nation. In his will, published the day after the hangings, he explicitly asked that “the day of my hanging should be a day of joy and cheers, and so should 17 June every year. This day should be a historic day in which speeches are delivered and anthems are sung in memory of our blood shed for Palestine and the Arab cause.”56 ­Hijazi used the same rhetoric in a letter he wrote to the vice-president of the Arab Executive, proclaiming that his “heart was full of joy and happiness since I will be hanged for Palestine, the beloved country.”57 The historian Yehoshua

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 31

Porath mentioned that a later letter to the same addressee, in which Hijazi denied the charges and begged the Arab Executive to lobby for his pardon, was not published at the time.58 This selective publication of Hijazi’s letters was part of the conscious production of a martyrological myth. At the time, British authorities were aware of the potential political fallout of the commemoration and attempted to pressure Arab Executive members to restrict the event. In a telegram to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London, the Officer Administering the Government of Palestine wrote that “. . . it is the declared intention of the Arab Executive to consider the holding annually of commemoration services and to erect a tomb to ‘the Martyrs.’ I am convinced that firm action now may lead the Executive to abandon any such intentions.”59 However, the British authorities were not able to prevent this commemoration. After the men’s execution, the Arab Executive announced that 17 June would be commemorated annually,60 and it organized memorial rallies every year until it was disbanded in 1934. The press also published poems dedicated to the new martyrs, the most famous of which at the time was “Bloody Tuesday” by the Palestinian poet ­Ibrahim Tuqan.61 The pattern was repeated cyclically on 17 June for the next five years. The martyrs were glorified by newspapers across the political spectrum, from the MSC’s al-Jami‘a al-‘Arabiyya to its rival Filastin, whose owner was affiliated with the opposition,62 and irrespective of whether their ownership was Muslim or Christian. Even the Palestinian Communist Party, in spite of its ­universalistic orientation, celebrated the annual Memorial Day.63 Furthermore, while the Buraq revolt itself was imbued with Muslim symbolism (as the name indicates), both Muslim writers and Christian writers utilized metaphors of martyrdom that were unmistakably Christian. In several newspapers (as well as in Ibrahim Tuqan’s poetry), the word “crucifixion” was used for the executions.64 While the newspapers wrote that the executed men had died for the “nation” or the “homeland,” sometimes the reference was to the Arab nation (“. . . they are those who irrigated with their pure blood the roots of the tree of Arab independence”65) and other times to “the Arab nation in Palestine” ( . . . “deep sadness” in the chest of “every member of the Arab nation in Palestine, men, women, and children”66). Following the fortieth-day ceremonies, al-Jami‘a al-‘Arabiyya wrote: “Yesterday Palestine marked the fortieth day for the martyrdom of three of her sons, Fu’ad Hijazi, ‘Ata al-Zir, and Muhammad Khalil Jamjum [who were martyred] for her freedom and independence.”67 In ­Filastin, the most consistent voice of Palestinian particularism, their sacrifice

32  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

was simply “for Palestine.” The editorial published under the title “Martyrs’ Day” on the first anniversary of the execution ended with the words: “For Palestine ­Hijazi, al-Zir, and J­amjum died, and for her they sacrificed their youth and power [ . . . ] For Palestine they devoted their blood and for them Palestine devotes her boundless tears.”68 Even when the three were described as having died for the Arab nation, their identity as Palestinians was highlighted. On the fourth anniversary of the execution, the Jaffa-based newspaper Al-Difa‘ published an editorial clarifying that martyrs are the necessary price Palestine must pay for freedom: “Is it possible that Syria has martyrs, Iraq has martyrs, Egypt has martyrs—and every country that revolts against colonialism would have martyrs but Palestine, hit by colonialism, would not have martyrs?”69 After the execution, demonstrations and memorial ceremonies took place in all the major cities and towns of Palestine (Safad, Hebron, Jenin, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Nablus, Haifa, Acre, and Tulkarm), as did a general strike on the first anniversary. These same cities also sent condolence delegations to the ceremonies near the martyrs’ graves in Acre on the first three anniversaries. But while there were protests over the executions throughout the Arab and Muslim world, there were no reports of delegations from abroad attending memorials inside Palestine or holding anniversary commemorations. A symbolic cartography was emerging, and the new martyrs were martyrs of Palestine. In light of this emphasis on local Palestinian martyrs, the little attention given to Pan-Arab martyrs in the commemorative repertoire of the Palestinian press in the same period is indicative of the role of martyrology in developing Palestinian particularism. Remarkably, the Palestinian press showed little interest in commemorating the Day of Maysalun, a battle on 24 July 1920, whereby the French effectively ended Faysal’s rule in Syria. This military defeat became a major myth of victimhood for Syrian and pan-Arab identities. Sati‘ al-Husri, the most prominent ideologue of pan-Arabism, considered it “one of the most important events in the modern history of the Arab nation.”70 Nevertheless, during the 1920s the battle of Maysalun earned only sporadic reference in the Palestinian press on its anniversary (July 24) but even then, the texts frequently referred to the fate of the “Syrian sister,” not as part of the collective experience of Palestinian ­readers.71 The Syrian national hero who was killed in the ­Maysalun battle, Yusef al-‘Azma, was rarely referred to. Interestingly, in July 1930, shortly after the fortieth day of commemoration of the triple execution in Acre, al-Jami’‘a ­al-‘Arabiyya decided to mention the tenth anniversary of ­al-‘Azma’s ­martyrdom. It seems, however,

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 33

that the importance of this reference is in its implicit message to take example from the Syrians in the way they remember their martyrs: “Every year on this day, the Syrians still visit en masse the martyr’s tomb in Maysaloun where they put bouquets of flowers and pour tears of sorrow and pain.”72 The Palestinians are cast in this text as sympathetic outside observers, not the community that is expected to visit the tomb; for that, they have their own martyrs. Similarly, the Italian execution of ‘Omar al-Mukhtar in Libya on 16 September 1931, which became another pan-Arab myth,73 received scarce and minor references in the Palestinian press. Al-Difa‘ dedicated an editorial to the topic on the third anniversary of his martyrdom, but in most other newspapers the 16 of September passed without any reference to al-Mukhtar. In the early 1930s Palestinian newspapers attempted to nurture the image of other Palestinian martyr-heroes. Palestinians who died in the context of struggle over land were especially important in this context. In one of these conflicts over agricultural land near Tab‘un, a young Palestinian named Muhammad ‘Alyan was shot and killed by Jewish settlers. Al-Difa‘ called upon Arabs to make pilgrimages to his grave and added, “We will make of your day what they [the Zionists] made of Trumpeldor day,”74 referring to the elaborate Zionist commemoration of Joseph Trumpeldor (1880–1920), who was killed in the northern settlement of Tel Hai and subsequently became a Zionist national hero.75 However, ‘Alyan, as other Palestinians who died in local land conflicts at the time, did not enter the pantheon of national martyrs like the 1930 martyrs. The symbolic resonance of these martyrs is clear in a flyer published on the fifth anniversary of their execution by an underground group from the Tulkarm/ Qalqilya region named “The Red Palm,” which called for the assassination of Palestine’s British rulers in retribution for the execution and demanded that the martyrs be celebrated annually.76 Martyrs Day of 1935, however, was the last anniversary to be mentioned by the Palestinian press. By 17 June 1936, the Palestinian Revolt was already underway, and press censorship had greatly tightened. In any case, for the young Palestinian national movement, the 1930 martyrs would soon be overshadowed by the heroic image of the martyrs who fell during the revolt. ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam: Precursor to Revolt

Sheikh ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam, a Muslim preacher who called for armed struggle against British rule, was killed with four of his followers in a clash with B ­ ritish troops on 20 November 1935.77 Two days after his death, Filastin published a

34  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

testimony by ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Karmi, a journalist who claimed to have seen al-Qassam on 17 June 1930, the day the three men were hanged: “I saw him with gloomy face, overcoming a tear, in his eyes a terrible spark, his body trembling with anger. He was almost unaware of his surroundings. I saw him hurrying to the mosque and I followed him. There he delivered a fiery sermon.”78 The accuracy of this report is less important than the evident attempt to construct a continuous martyrological narrative linking al-Qassam to the earlier martyrs. Similar linkage was emphasized by a delegation from Nablus, which on the fortieth day of al-Qassam’s martyrdom went north to visit his grave, after first visiting the grave of the 1930 martyrs in Acre.79 Al-Qassam’s funeral was massive. According to Filastin, it was attended by 30,000 people but very few political leaders.80 There were reasons for this: the Muslim elite saw the populist/religious elements of al-Qassam’s movement as a threat to their control,81 while advocates of a more secular nationalism, who considered Islam as only one legitimizing element among others, feared that his religious activism would disrupt the balance among such elements.82 By the fortieth day of his death, however, the indifference of the leaders had disappeared with their realization of the symbolic power of his image.83 From then on, the various political parties competed in praising al-Qassam and in appropriating his martyrdom for their political agendas.84 In contrast to Haj Amin al-Husayni, a late adopter of al-Qassam, Filastin “immediately nationalized the religious leader, denuding him of any ­Islamic content.”85 The newspaper used what were reported to be al-Qassam’s last words as the title of its coverage of his death: “We will not surrender—this is a jihad for Allah and for homeland (watan);”86 In its extensive coverage of the funeral the following day, Filastin mentioned that delegations came from all parts of Palestine and highlighted the fact that the coffins were wrapped with the Arab national flag.. Compared with the commemoration of the 1930 ­martyrs, Filastin adopted a more pan-Arab line, emphasizing al-Qassam’s Syrian birth and the fact that he had previously taken part in the Syrian revolt against the French in 1919–1920. It is likely that ‘Isa al-‘Isa, Filastin’s Christian editor, used this rhetoric to reduce the impact of the martyred leader’s religious message.87 The pan-Arab Istiqlal party was similarly eager to cultivate the emerging myth of al-Qassam’s martyrdom. One of its founders, Akram Zu‘aitar, was among the few known political figures to attend al-Qassam’s funeral. On 6 February 1936 Istiqlal organized a ceremony in Haifa. In a report about the event,

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 35

al-Difa‘ provided the names of speakers, as well as of those who sent telegrams and money to the families. The pan-Arab orientation of the party was evident in the inclusion of three speakers from outside Palestine (Jordan, Aleppo, and Hama) although most of the speakers were Palestinian. However, the reported financial donations came only from Hebron and Jerusalem, not from outside Palestine.88 The Great Revolt (1936–39) erupted five months after al-Qassam was killed, and according to both popular remembrance 89 and scholarly observation,90 his death should be considered an early stage of the revolt itself. The revolt, in which thousands of Palestinians lost their lives,91 added a significant layer to Palestinian martyrology. Sacrificing for Palestine became a virtue appreciated by the mainstream. The Palestinian historian ‘Isa al-Sifri dedicated his 1937 book, Arab P ­ alestine: Between the Mandate and Zionism, to “Those who were martyred / those who fill the prisons  / those who were arrested, exiled, and persecuted  / those who fought with faith  / those who tasted the bitterness of life / — for Palestine [emphasis in the original].”92 The fascination of Khalil Sakakini with heroic martyrdom is evident in his glorification of Sami al-Ansari. Al-Ansari was killed by a British soldier after shooting a British police officer,93 and according to Sakakini, before his death he told his brother: “Don’t be sorry, I did my duty.” Then Sakakini added: This is the hero who fell yesterday. He is indeed a great hero [ . . . ] Yesterday the nation went to the house of his father who brought to this world such a hero. They congratulated him rather than comforted him, he spoke with pride about his son—and he deserves to be proud. [ . . . ] Every day we hear about this heroism. It seems that the heroism that was revealed in Palestine in the past in the many wars that were imposed on the country and was latent until we thought it was dead—has been rediscovered.”94

With the growing numbers of Palestinian casualties during the revolt, two of Palestine’s main newspapers, Filastin and al-Difa‘, each called separately for building a monument to the “unknown martyr” (al-shahid al-majhul ). On the first anniversary of al-Qassam’s death, Filastin’s editorial column suggested: Just as the West invented a symbol (ramz) of heroism and courage after the Great War, a symbol for the unknown soldier, the nation that is so brave in its jihad and its heavy sacrifices should invent an eternal symbol for the unknown martyr who fell in defense of his nation, his soul and his property.95

36  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

The editorial also notes that Jerusalem’s National Committee had decided to build a memorial to commemorate the unknown martyrs.96 Two weeks later, al-Difa‘ raised the same idea with a similar argument: Commemorate, O Arabs of Palestine, the unknown martyr. Commemorate the one who was martyred and was not known among you, except by his father and mother. Establish for him a symbol like the symbol that was established in different European capitals (the unknown soldier)[ . . . ] The body of this soldier will be buried in Bal‘a, or Ya‘bad, or Bait Imrin.97 Then a symbol for him will be established in every city, and delegates will visit it, children will see it on their way to school, and the people will surround it with memory and reverence.98

The discussion over establishing memorial monuments was probably common at the time. In his book from 1937, ‘Isa al-Sifri presents a sketch for a memorial monument that was planned to be built in al-Mintar Mountain to commemorate the martyrs of the Bal‘a battle.99 In the cases of all of the above-mentioned suggestions and plans to build monuments, it is unclear how close the goal came to being accomplished. The nationalist motivation for cultivating unifying symbols would increase even as internal tensions between Palestinians grew. As of 1938, the revolt became mired in internal conflicts along class and political lines.100 The partial overlap between class and sectarian lines (and the overrepresentation of Christians in government jobs) triggered sporadic anti-Christian rhetoric and violence, which at least some Christians perceived as a threat,101 especially at a time when their relative weight in the Palestinian elite was declining.102 Although the AHC was committed to Muslim-Christian solidarity, the decentralization of the rebel leadership sometimes led to anti-Christian propaganda by local ­rebels.103 For the AHC, the Istiqlalists, and local Muslim and Christian leaders opposed to sectarianism, a shared martyrology may have been a way to support national unity at a time of crisis. COMMEMORATION UNDER CENSORSHIP

The zenith years of commemorating Palestinian martyrs were from 1930 until the beginning of the revolt in 1936. The Palestinian press was a powerful tool in country-wide propagation of the national calendar and commemoration of martyrs. By 1930, there were ten Arabic dailies and weeklies in Palestine. ­According to the historian Ami Ayalon, al-Difa‘ (established in 1934) and ­Filastin each had a country-wide circulation of 7,000–10,000. More important

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 37

than the individual subscriptions, however, is the fact that newspapers were read aloud in public places.104 This meant that tens of thousands of people, from Gaza in the south to Nazareth in the north, shared the content and could imagine themselves as part of a community commemorating and protesting together, for example, the Balfour Declaration, or grieving over the death of ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam. Furthermore, compared to the first years after World War I, Palestinian political institutions were more developed in 1930. Although the Arab Executive was not an elected body and did not have any legal authority, the fact that it united respectable Muslim and Christian figures from various parts of the country made it possible to foster country-wide, simultaneous, and cyclical commemorations for several years. The public visibility of martyrological commemoration was closely related to the level of control imposed by British authorities, which fluctuated throughout the Mandate period. From the start of British occupation, the press was subjected to strict supervision by the Criminal Intelligence Department. This supervision gradually loosened over the years and was eliminated by 1928.105 As the system of oversight underwent reorganization,106 there was minimal press supervision. But in January 1933, a new, strict Press Ordinance was issued. Not coincidently, the most elaborate martyrological rhetoric developed in the Palestinian press in the gap between these two dates. The 1933 Press Ordinance was amended six times between 1936 and 1945, with the press regulations becoming progressively tougher.107 The amendments and new regulations made possible the frequent suspension of newspapers during the revolt and stricter supervision during World War II.108 Under these circumstances, expressions of national sentiments were relegated to seemingly apolitical sections like the sports column,109 and explicit commemoration of national martyrs was not possible. Thus, whereas press commemoration of Balfour Day was tolerated, probably because the authorities considered it less “inflammatory,” references to 17 June as “Martyrs Day” or glorification of al-Qassam disappeared from the Palestinian press from the beginning of the revolt until 1948.110 With the Arab Palestinian press unable to play a role in promoting the martyrology of the revolt, oral poetry became an important alternative. Poets such as Nuh Ibrahim, Ibrahim Tuqan, ‘Abd al-Rahim Mahmud, and Abu Salmah all played an important role.111 Especially important was Nuh Ibrahim, who wrote his poems in a colloquial Arabic accessible to the large circles of illiterate peasants who became dominant at the later stages of the revolt.

38  COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE

Ibrahim had a significant impact on the popularization of the myth of alQassam,112 and with it he provided unifying symbols to peasants and urban Palestinians.113 Ibrahim, himself a student and follower of al-Qassam, constructed al-­ Qassam’s image as an Arab Palestinian hero rather than a Muslim one, and the overriding sentiment expressed by his martyrological poetry is Palestinian national unity.114 In his widely known poem “O What a Loss, ‘Izz al-Din,” he called al-Qassam “a martyr for all Palestine.”115 National unity and MuslimChristian solidarity are also important elements in his poetry: “Say not ‘Christian’ and ‘Muslim’; we all are brothers of blood,” is a line from “The homeland is for all,” one of his best known poems. He is also remembered for the famous poem “Min sijn ‘Akka,” (from the Acre prison) dedicated to the three prisoners executed in 1930. Nuh Ibrahim, killed in a battle near Tamra on 28 October 1938, became known as the martyr-poet.116 WHICH COMMEMORATIONS ENDURE?

Palestinian national identity emerged from the common experience of Arabs who faced the same colonial effort to dispossess them. Shared experience by itself, however, does not create a sense of shared identity without cultural processing and the creation of myths and symbols related to this collective experience. Political calendars and shared martyrology thus became important markers of identity and symbolic tools for political mobilization in Mandatory Palestine. They were especially important for the advancement of Palestinian particularism, which could not rely on a pre-existing common religion or a distinct language. Because the creation of a stable political calendar requires the use of state or state-like mechanisms, the success in building it was very limited. Neither the Arab Executive, the SMC, or later, the AHC represented a sovereign state, and therefore they lacked the ability to mobilize sufficient resources or to establish hegemony-producing mechanisms such as a national compulsory education system. Still, their support for establishing a stable date on the calendar was necessary for the routinization of commemoration. Suggested dates for national holidays that did not enjoy the support of these institutions proved elusive or were limited to a certain region or political party. The collective political calendar of the Palestinians in Mandatory Palestine included only a few events that were embraced by the public: the Nabi Musa festival, Martyrs’ Day commemorating the June 1930 executions, and Balfour Day. Balfour Day was

COMMEMORATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 39

the only one commemorated both at the beginning and the end of the British occupation. Its endurance is at least partly explained by the tangible political implications of the declaration, which were continuously visible to most Palestinians. Even the commemoration of the Balfour Declaration, however, shrank drastically after the revolt and its devastating impact on Palestinian institutions. The Nabi Musa festival gained its status as a national holiday because it was a political instrument of the SMC, which had the resources to maintain and expand it, and also had a structural interest in shaping its meaning as a distinct Palestinian national event. Martyrological memory also depended to a large extent on institutional support. Before 1930 none of the martyrs were commemorated by an annual memorial day in Palestine. In the years following the executions of 1915–1916 and the 1921 clashes, Palestinian national institutions and the press did not exist, or they were not sufficiently developed. Similarly, annual memorial days for martyrs were not observed after 1935 because of the institutional breakdown during the revolt. The formalized calendar was also more vulnerable to the restrictions and censorship imposed by the British authorities. Commemoration of martyrs in less formalized ways such as oral poetry was a more successful and durable project. Commemoration under British rule reflected and shaped the boundaries of an emerging Palestinian national identity. The demographic and geographic demarcation lines of this identity were defined both by the commemorating community that shared the political calendar and by the identity of commemorated martyrs. These boundaries included Muslim and Christian Arabs who lived within the political borders of Mandatory Palestine. After the Nakba, the division of this emerging imagined community between different political sovereignties led to the emergence of a variety of calendars, with little overlap between them. The emergence of the particular political calendar of the Palestinian citizens of Israel is the topic of the next chapter.

2

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

from 1947 to 1948 almost all Palestinian urban elites were exiled to neighboring Arab countries. Arab-Palestinian newspapers, libraries, theaters, colleges, and other institutions of national knowledge-production disappeared with them. The Palestinians who remained in Israel were disproportionately ­villagers, with a relatively low level of education and literacy. Until 1966 this defeated population lived under an Israeli military government that severely restricted movement, work, political organization, and freedom of speech.1 Furthermore, the Palestinian population was scattered in various isolated “pockets” that survived the expulsions: the Galilee, the Triangle (a concentration of towns and villages adjacent to the eastern border of pre-1967 Israel), the Negev/Naqb (a desert region in the south of Israel/Palestine), and various previously Palestinian cities (Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Lydda, and Ramleh) that became mixed cities with a Jewish majority. These new conditions had far reaching implications on the way Palestinians who remained under Israeli rule have preserved and produced their collective memory. In 1948 Nabi Musa remained under Jordanian rule and in 1953 the Jordanian authorities abolished the Nabi Musa celebrations—perhaps not a great loss for Palestinians in Israel, given that the tomb had been inaccessible for Israeli citizens, including Arabs, since 1948 and remained so until 1967. During this same time period, the political relevance of the Balfour Declaration declined. The British no longer held power, and the actual physical destruction of the Nakba far overshadowed the earlier symbolic commitment of the declaration. Even if there were intentions among Arab citizens to commemorate the Balfour Declaration, the restrictions on movement and political organization imposed by 41

42  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

the military regime limited public political commemoration. The political calendar that was developed during the British Mandate period had now almost vanished. When Palestinians in Israel became more organized in the late 1950s, new dates took their place in the collective calendar. These new dates and the new martyrology nurtured around them have played an important role in the articulation of new competing definitions of collective identity for the Palestinians in Israel. In the long term, the power balance between the various actors involved in this competition has led to the dominance of a perspective that sees both Arab-Palestinian national identity as well as Israeli citizenship as two complementary and legitimate elements of identity. In the same way that the Arab Executive and Amin al-Husayni were the entrepreneurs of Palestinian particularism under British rule, this new identity had its own major entrepreneur: the Israeli Communist Party. THE ISRAELI COMMUNIST PARTY

A new incarnation of the pre-1948 Palestinian Communist Party resulting from the merger of its pre-war Arab and Jewish factions, this party was the only organization that could legally and publicly politicize the memory and identity of Arab citizens under military rule. It attracted Palestinian Arab support because it was a legitimate political party, represented in the Knesset, and strongly defending the rights of Arabs and opposing Israeli positions in both foreign and domestic affairs, including demanding the return of Palestinian refugees.2 Over the years the party has gone through many changes, and the official display of unity has masked deep controversies (which even led to a split in 1965).3 However, the dominant voice in the party has always considered the Israeli citizenship of the Arabs in Israel as an important asset and aspired to develop it beyond its instrumental value. Thus, aside from the explicit commitment of the Arab members of the party to Arab nationalism (and from the 1970s to Palestinian nationalism), the party attempted to develop a non-Zionist version of Israeli civic patriotism shared by Arab and Jewish citizens.4 In the long run, and especially since the mid-1970s, this civic patriotism was replaced by a more subtle aspiration for being part of a shared Israeli public sphere, but Israeli citizenship remained an important element in the party ideology. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the party was by far the strongest among Palestinians in Israel.5 Furthermore, it was a “workshop that produced the views of other forces in the Arab sector,” since all other forces “have moved toward the idea of two peoples and two states, a concept of

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 43

equality that focuses on closing gaps between Jews and Arabs, and struggle that remains within the confines of Israeli law.”6 Its key role in developing consciousness was related to its network of Arabic language publications, effective party organization, and financial support from the former Soviet Union.7 For the party, the commemoration of key events was central to political mobilization. This chapter deals with the emergence of the two events that dominated the political calendar from 1956 to 1998: the massacre in Kafr Qasim and Land Day. WHY KAFR QASIM?

Kafr Qasim is an Arab village in the Triangle that was annexed by Israel following the 1949 Israeli-Jordanian armistice agreement. On 29 October 1956, a group of peasants from Kafr Qasim returned to the village from their fields, unaware that their village was under curfew. Forty-seven of them were executed by the Israeli Border Patrol troops.8 The massacre triggered a long-term unifying political protest that crossed regional, communal, and political differences—but mostly without crossing the political borders of the State of Israel. The emergence of Kafr Qasim as a major political myth is not as self-­evident as it appears to be. The policy of killing unarmed Palestinians as a method of controlling their movement was common at the time. The historian Benny Morris estimated that in the years from 1949 to 1956, between 2,700 and 5,000 Palestinians were killed by the IDF, police, and civilians along Israel’s newly created borders, most of them unarmed refugees who tried either to return home or to harvest their crops.9 Morris draws a direct line between this policy and the massacre in Kafr Qasim. Nor was the massacre of Kafr Qasim the incident with the single largest number of casualties in the 1950s. From 14 to 15 October 1953 Israeli troops attacked the village of Qibya in the West Bank, only ten miles away from Kafr Qasim, and killed sixty-nine Palestinian villagers, most of them women and children. In the case of Qibya the documented order to commit a massacre is much clearer and more explicit than in the case of Kafr Qasim,10 but nevertheless, the remembrance of the massacre did not become a mobilizing myth among Palestinians in Israel. The massacre in Kafr Qasim was also not the only one committed in the very same period. It occurred only a few hours before Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip in what became known as the Suez War. According to a UN report, on 3 November, during the conquest of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces killed 275 Palestinians.11 In the Gaza Strip this event is commemorated publicly: in 2009 the city hall of Khan Yunis established a committee that

44  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

would develop ways to commemorate the massacre of 1956; subsequently some educational institutions in the city commemorated the event.12 According to the same UN report, on 12 November Israeli military forces killed 110 Palestinians in Rafah after the fighting was already over. The author of the UN report, R. F. Bayard, chairman of the Egyptian-Israeli Mixed Armistice Commission (UN observers), stated that among the victims in both events in the Gaza Strip “a good number of persons have been shot down in cold blood for no apparent reason.”13 According to the official Israeli version of the Rafah events, soldiers faced riots, including gun shots, and during their attempts to end the riots they killed forty-eight people.14 At least Knesset members of the Communist Party were aware of the Rafah event and tried, unsuccessfully, to initiate a discussion about it in the K ­ nesset, as they had with the Kafr Qasim massacre. Regarding the massacre in Kafr Qasim, however, they were much more determined to make it public knowledge, against the government’s attempt to block information.15 Al-Ittihad, the Communist Party’s newspaper, gave much less attention to the killing in the Gaza Strip. During the first decade after 1956, al-Ittihad did link the Suez War and the Kafr Qasim massacre in its commemorative rhetoric, including a reference to both events in the main headlines on their anniversaries, but the ­reference to the specific massacres in the Gaza Strip was brief and uncommon. These massacres did not become a subject of commemoration by themselves, nor were they grouped with the massacre of Kafr Qasim to constitute one episode (“the massacres of autumn 1956,” for example, in the same way that the ­series of expulsions in 1948 is remembered as one event, the Nakba). Interestingly, when representatives of eleven Arab states submitted a letter to the President of the General Assembly of the UN in December 1956, they protested the “inhuman treatment of the Arabs who live in Israel, the Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula [ . . . ] Hundreds of Arab men, women, and children have been ruthlessly murdered in cold blood.”16 In this protest the various 1956 massacres constituted a single episode. Similarly, al-Difa‘, the formerly Jaffa-based journal that after 1948 was published in Jordanian-ruled East Jerusalem, reported on the communists’ protest in the Knesset against the Rafah events and mentioned the massacre in Kafr Qasim as a side note in the same report.17 Later on the newspaper reported briefly on the Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion’s announcement in the Knesset about the Kafr Qasim massacre.18 The selection of Kafr Qasim from a series of concurrent massacres and the endurance of its commemoration are related to the political status of

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 45

the victims and those who commemorated them outside Kafr Qasim—Israeli citizens—unlike the victims of the massacres in the Gaza Strip or in Qibya. Similarly, what distinguished the Kafr Qasim victims from the thousands of Palestinians who were killed while trying to cross the armistice line is that the victims were Israeli citizens, who were on their way home from work, not refugees on their way back home who tried to cross a recently-created international border. As historian Shira Robinson has pointed out, in the first years of the state’s existence citizenship became a “category of exclusion” that enabled Israel to legalize Palestinian expulsion and prevent Palestinian return. When Israel started to issue Israeli identity (ID) cards in late 1948, the criteria for eligibility were shaped by the drive to minimize the number of Arabs in the state. Similarly, when the Citizenship Law was legislated in 1952, its parameters were shaped to a large extent by the motivation to exclude the maximum number of Arabs from citizenship, while keeping a universalistic language and the appearance of a liberal inclusive citizenship.19 In these formative years, not having an ­Israeli ID card or Israeli citizenship significantly increased the likelihood that a Palestinian would be deported beyond the state’s borders. This policy divided ­Palestinians between those who did not have ID cards (and later citizenship), and therefore were likely to be exiled or remain in exile, and a minority who received Israeli ID cards and was allowed to stay and, in some cases, even allowed returning after expulsion. As Hannah Arendt argued, human rights can be better protected if articulated as civil rights.20 Palestinians in Israel did not have to read Arendt in order to develop these insights. By the end of 1950 Israel stopped en masse expulsions of Palestinians from its territory; its demographic policy instead focused on preventing Palestinians from returning by blocking the armistice line. Since then there have been plans to “relocate” the remaining Palestinians,21 and even some contingency plans to expel them,22 but at the end of the day, citizenship has protected most of them from further expulsion. Therefore, while Palestinian writers in Israel frequently analyzed the massacre of Kafr Qasim in the wider context of the Arab struggle against colonialism,23 classifying violence against Palestinians as a violation of civil rights was even more frequent. This emphasis has been the most rational path for protecting them from further expulsion or arbitrary killing. At the same time, since commemoration of this violence has been seen by the authorities as a threat, Palestinians have been carefully monitored and a subject of aggressive attempts

46  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

to discipline commemoration. This, in turn, added the additional drive to highlight citizenship in order to protect the commemoration itself. Hence, the selection of events into the canonic political calendar and the selection of martyrs to the pantheon frequently have been shaped by the need to highlight Israeli citizenship. This emphasis on citizenship was also highly compatible with the ideology of the Communist Party, the dominant voice of Arab opposition in Israel at the time of the massacre in Kafr Qasim. Tawfiq Tubi, a prominent communist leader, and a Member of Knesset (MK) played a crucial role in disseminating information about the massacre to the public, bypassing the heavy censorship. He was also the first to articulate the political lessons of the massacre. An article he published in al-Ittihad on 31 December 1956, titled “After the massacre,” is an early expression of the major themes that would dominate the commemorative rhetoric for the next few decades. First, Tubi demanded an investigation as to “who gave the order,” suggesting that the government itself bore responsibility, not only the troops on the ground. Second, he argued that the massacre reflected a broad racist ideology. This ideology led to various massacres since 1947/48, which Tubi listed, including the massacre in Rafah (tellingly, the reference to this massacre appeared as a passing remark, not as the focus of protest). For Tubi, the Kafr Qasim massacre was one extreme act among many violations of the rights of the Arab citizens of Israel, including: discrimination, the subjugation to military regime, land confiscation, dispossession of Arab peasants, and administrative arrests. Tubi repeatedly referred to the massacre’s victims as well as to the Palestinian public in Israel as “citizens” (muwatinun). Furthermore, Tubi argued that the massacre was not a particularly Arab affair, and the protest against it should come (and indeed came) from Jewish citizens as well. In his view, the massacre was not only a crime against the Arabs but also against “the real interests of Israel.” Finally, Tubi asserted that the only way to prevent the reoccurence of the tragedy was by uprooting the roots of national oppression.24 In later years, the demand to investigate was complemented by a statement that the massacre was part of a broader plan to expel the residents of the ­Triangle. This plot failed because the residents stuck to their village (common in the local Kafr Qasim narrative)25 or because the Communist Party uncovered the conspiracy and published the massacre (common in the communist narrative). It is noteworthy that a plan to relocate the residents of the Triangle during wartime did exist. Although the existing evidence suggest that it was not intended to be activated that same evening,26 given Palestinian memories

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 47

of the Nakba and their awareness of the state’s aspiration to reduce the number of Arabs in the country, the centrality of the expulsion theme in the commemoration is not surprising. The emphasis on the Israeli citizenship of the victims is intimately related to the fear of expulsion and was initially driven by the need to ensure legal ­protection. It is not a coincidence that the first mass country-wide protest took place the day of the opening of the trial of the perpetrators (6 January 1957), expressing the hope to obtain justice through the Israeli judicial system. The twohour general strike announced that day united Palestinians from the Triangle, the Galilee, and the mixed Arab-Jewish cities across Israel27 and distinguished them from Palestinians living beyond the armistice line. Despite the Military Government’s aggressive attempts to prevent gatherings on 6 January, some small-scale meetings were held, and in these meetings the memorial ceremonies were only a prologue for protesting the broader context of dispossession and life under military rule.28 This emphasis on the judicial process is expressed as well in what has become an iconic symbol of the massacre—a coin of one cent (agora/qirsh) symbolizing the extremely light punishment imposed on the brigade commander Colonel Issachar Shadmi for his responsibility in the massacre. “Shadmi’s kirsh” has been referred to in every annual commemoration, and portrayals of an agora appear in several art works commemorating the massacre. One of them was chosen as the first object in the entrance to the commemorative museum established in Kafr Qasim in 2006, and another was chosen to form the backdrop on the stage during the main ceremony on the fiftieth anniversary that same year. The insultingly inadequate punishment of the perpetrators (none of them remained in jail after the end of 1959) had not changed the importance ascribed to the judicial process, but only focused the protest against this lenient penalization. This emphasis on state-citizens relations is indicative of the main line of commemoration that has been shaped in the decades since the massacre—a protest of citizens against their state, rather than a revolt of a national movement. There is also another aspect to the separation of Palestinian citizens from non-citizens. Arab and Palestinian scholars and politicians outside of Israel by and large ignored the massacre of Kafr Qasim,29 especially during the first decade after the massacre. I reviewed every issue of the bulletin Falastinuna, the monthly mouthpiece of the Fatah movement that was published from 1959 to 1964 in Kuwait and Beirut. Falastinuna commemorated other massacres committed by Israel, such as the 1953 Qibya massacre and the Deir Yasin massacre

48  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

in 1948.30 I did not find, however, a single reference to the Kafr Qasim massacre. Falastin al-thawra, the PLO bulletin published from 1972, made only passing references to the massacre, usually not as the topic of an article. The m ­ assacre certainly did not become an element in the bulletin’s main calendar as the Black September events in Jordan did.31 The movie Kafr Qasim (1975), directed by the Lebanese director Borhane Alaouié, appeared almost two decades after the massacre and is noteworthy as a rare representation of the massacre in art created outside of Israel. In other words, in the same way that the annual commemoration of the 1930 execution overlapped with the political boundaries of Mandatory Palestine, the commemoration of the Kafr Qasim massacre overlapped with the concentrations of Arab population inside the State of I­srael. Again, martyrological commemoration was the tool through which political boundaries shaped collective identities. Paradoxically, the massacre of Kafr Qasim became a landmark in the construction of Palestinians as Israeli citizens. On the first anniversary of the massacre, thousands of Palestinian citizens from various regions inside Israel (and only inside Israel) were united in simultaneous memorial processions, strikes, and meetings.32 This was the beginning of a political tradition and the first anchor in their political calendar. Until 1976, the annual commemoration of the massacre was the most important platform for Palestinians in Israel to display political protest. LAND DAY AND THE BIFOCAL CALENDAR

If there was any Palestinian hope for turning back the wheels of history, it was based on the promising pan-Arab momentum in the 1950s and 1960s, during which Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser promised to politically unite the Arab world and confront Zionism. These hopes, however, were shattered with the Arab defeat in 1967. In this war, Israel captured the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Following the war, the Palestinian national movement, led by the PLO, reemerged as a focus of collective identity and pride, but it did not represent a viable political option for the Palestinians in Israel. The 1967 war also clarified that Israel was not going to disappear soon, and as a consequence, the Palestinian citizens of Israel gradually turned to the Israeli political sphere to cope with their predicament.33 These integrative tendencies were enhanced by the comparison made by Palestinians in Israel between their improved economic conditions and that of their fellow Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 49

Strip.34 In the first decade after the 1967 occupation, the Israeli economy profited immensely from the influx of cheap Palestinian labor from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.35 The Palestinians in Israel, although at the bottom rank of this economy, were part of it. By the early 1970s the dramatic rise in the level of education of the Palestinians in Israel enabled the development of a new educated stratum that constituted the human potential for wider circles of political leadership.36 In addition, new political institutions were established: in 1974 the Israeli government established the Committee of Arab Mayors, but very soon the committee gained independent political power. In 1975 the Communist Party established the National Committee for the Defense of Arab Land (here after, the Land Committee), which was seemingly non-partisan but was dominated by the communists. This committee focused on confronting the on-going confiscation of private Arab land.37 The most notable expression of the above-mentioned sociopolitical transformations was the ability of Palestinian citizens in Israel to organize the general strike known as Land Day.38 Following the decision of the Land Committee on 30 March 1976, Palestinians in Israel took part in a popular country-wide strike and participated in demonstrations against a plan to confiscate land from Arab owners in the Galilee. The rallies turned into violent clashes between the demonstrators and the Border Patrol troops who used live ammunition, killing six Palestinians and injuring seventy. The day after Land Day, the main headline in al-Ittihad utilized the already established political status of the Kafr Qasim massacre to grant legitimacy to a new emerging myth: “A second Kafr-Qasim massacre in the Galilee and the Triangle.” This headline became a self-fulfilling prophecy. For the next two decades the calendar of Palestinian political commemoration inside Israel would become bifocal. However, Land Day quickly replaced the Kafr Qasim massacre as the major temporal focus of political mobilization. After 1976 the parallel between the massacre in Kafr Qasim and Land Day became less blatant, since such a parallel would have impaired the efforts to constitute Land Day as a historical turning point. As historian Yael Zerubavel has indicated, “The choice of a single event clearly provides a better opportunity for ritualized remembrance than a gradual process of transition does. The master commemorative narrative thus presents these events as turning points that changed the group’s historical development.”39 “Land Day,” therefore, “became a watershed in political consciousness and protest methods.”40

50  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

The annual commemorative ceremonies of Land Day extolled the ability and readiness of the Palestinian citizens of Israel to carry out a country-wide organized struggle for their rights as well as to pay the price with blood.41 The dominant commemorative narrative has highlighted three aspects of transition symbolized by Land Day. The first aspect is psychological. Land Day has replaced Kafr Qasim as the starting point of Palestinian resistance. Land Day symbolized a transition from the humiliation of 1948 and the military government to collective self-assertion and pride, and from “false consciousness” to a “true consciousness.” This aspect is especially evident in the discourse of people from the towns directly involved in Land Day: “Land Day equipped people with courage, and definitely toppled the barrier of fear which the authorities tried to establish for decades”;42 “Land Day is the dividing line between the frightened Israeli Arab and the Arab Palestinian who is a citizen of Israel”;43 or “Land Day is the real expression of the sentiment of belonging. It broke the false consciousness. Before Land Day people were celebrating Independence Day and they stopped after it.”44 “The end of fear” of the military government is the same motive that local leaders in Kafr Qasim emphasize in their own narrative of local resistance,45 but it seems that assigning this role to Land Day is more popular. The second aspect of the change is political. Land Day has been presented as an uprising against the Israeli government’s “divide and rule” policy and a shift from sectarian politics to Palestinian national unity. On the tenth anniversary of Land Day in 1986, al-Jadid, the literary bulletin of the Communist Party, emphasized this aspect: On Land Day the racist policy that divided us into “denominations,” “clans,” “Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bedouins,” “Arabs and Druze”—failed. All the people were fused in a melting pot and were forged in the shared national fire . . . Land Day reflected the failure of [our] national oppression and in this sense Land Day was the eruption of the sacred anger not only against the looting of 20,000 dunams in the al-Battuf region, but against all the governmental policy toward the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel.46

It is noteworthy that al-Jadid did not list the division between Palestinian citizens and non-citizens. We will return to this point later. The third aspect of Land Day’s function as a turning point is social. Palestinian activists and Arabic media have presented it as an event that undermined internal hierarchies among Palestinians in Israel and therefore extended politi-

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 51

cal participation to wider circles. The “horizontal fraternity” and suspension of differences between individuals is a dominant feature of nationalist rhetoric,47 and the presentation of Land Day as a historical moment of flattening hierarchies is one element in its construction as a national day. This image of Land Day as an historical equalizer suited the political rhetoric of both communists and nationalists. The communist author Salem Jubran, for example, wrote that: Land Day was a milestone in our national democratic struggle. Since then, as a result of many factors, very wide popular circles which had been afraid, indifferent, or negatively neutral in the past, approached the struggle. The working class, the peasants, the intellectuals, the merchants, the students, men, and women, all launched the struggle together.”48

Similar rhetoric is evident in individual memories. ‘Omar Sa‘id from Kafr Kana who was a high school student and a member of the Alliance of the Israeli Communist Youth (hereafter Communist Youth) in 1976 told me in 2001: The teachers changed. Teachers who were formal became closer to the students. Society in general became less hierarchic. Only after Land Day could a person like me have been elected to the Student Council. Land Day brought people from the periphery of society to the center. It gave opportunity to small families. Local groups could emerge under this new atmosphere.49

This is beyond mere rhetoric. Under the new circumstances marginalized elements in the Arab villages, like small families, started to gain relative power. In the four local elections after Land Day, from 1977 to 1989, there was a gradual shrinking of the power of familial lists.50 There also seems to have been a change in gender balance. In the Kafr Qasim ceremonies we have no evidence of female participation in the preparations or as speakers at the time (even in the ceremonies that took place outside of the relatively conservative village). In the first Land Day annual ceremony in Kafr Kana, however, a local girl named Lutfia Khatib spoke and linked the Land Day martyrs with Amina Dakduk from Kafr Kana, whom she described as the first martyr of 1936.51 Women also joined the committees that prepared the Land Day commemorations in the Galilee. The leading role of the relatively secularized Galilee in the commemoration probably contributed to this change. Another tangible repercussion of Land Day was the growing involvement in the Israeli political system. New parties emerged as participants in the election. In the year following Land Day, the Communist Party joined several other

52  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

Jewish and Arab organizations to establish the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (DFPE) in an attempt to extend the circle of supporters beyond its traditional constituency. In 1983 nationalist activists who considered the DFPE as an “Israelified” party, as well as a puppet of the Soviet Union, joined a group of non-Zionist Jewish activists to establish a new party, the Progressive List for Peace (hereafter, Progressive List). Although it was based initially on an Arab-Jewish alliance, the party adopted a blatant Arab-Palestinian nationalist orientation, and by 1988 most of the Jewish members left it. In 1988 the first exclusively Arab party, the Arab Democratic Party, took part in the Knesset election and gained one seat. In the same period there were further institutional developments. In 1982, Arab mayors, Arab parliament members, and representatives of extra-parliamentary Arab organizations, established the Follow-Up Committee (FUC) to coordinate the collective action of Palestinians in Israel. Since 1988 the FUC has been the major forum for making decisions about nation-wide strikes and demonstrations. Its decisions have been widely followed by the Palestinian public in Israel. Unofficially, in some instances Israeli authorities even recognized it as a leadership body for coordinating and negotiating strikes and rallies. The FUC also has some sub-committees; one of them, the Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education (FUCAE), has been especially active (see Chapter 8). The improved organizational ability of the Palestinians and the removal of the military government made Land Day commemorations more coordinated than the early commemoration of the massacre in Kafr Qasim. Until the late 1980s the major entrepreneur of this commemoration was the Land Committee. Since 1979 the geographical spread of this commemoration reflected the emerging ethno-regional cartography that set the Palestinians in Israel apart from other Palestinians: beyond many local events, there was a central event for each of the major regions of the Arab population—the Galilee, the Triangle, and the Naqb. Al-Ittihad highlighted this structure both before the events and after them with headlines aimed at nurturing cross-regional solidarity such as: “From the heights of the Galilee to the Naqb through the Triangle: the Arab masses prepare to commemorate Land Day.”52 These ceremonies were covered in detail, with a great deal of attention to every speaker. Land Day events beyond the Green Line, such as strikes, rallies, conferences, and leaflet circulation were reported briefly and in a separate section.53 No less important was the audience that was exposed to this coverage in the formative years of the Land Day myth. Until 1983 al-Ittihad was the major

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 53

media through which Palestinian citizens could have learned about the ceremonies in various parts of the country—and it was distributed only inside the Green Line. On the other hand, East Jerusalem newspapers, which gave much more attention to West Bank events, were not sold inside the Green Line, except in Nazareth.54 BETWEEN PALESTINIAN UNITY AND CIVIL EQUALITY

Unlike Kafr Qasim, Land Day has been commemorated as well by Palestinians outside Israel and even in the wider circle of non-Palestinian Arabs. The international network of communist parties enabled the DFPE to export Land Day to countries beyond the Arab world, where it usually has been celebrated by communist parties. From the beginning, though, there has been some tension, although not necessarily a contradiction, between the Palestinian nationalist and the universalistic meaning of Land Day. On Land Day, the Israeli state treated its Palestinian citizens with the same disregard for human life that characterized its policy in the territories occupied in 1967. For some political actors this theme served as a starting point for emphasizing the unity of Palestinians regardless of their political status. For others, it was an impetus for reemphasizing their particular status as citizens to prevent further erosion of their rights. Therefore, the rhetoric around Land Day has been characterized by highlighting both the unity of Palestinians every­where and a demand for civil equality as citizens of Israel.55 In the first two decades after Land Day, a major source of tension was the relative weight that each element should receive in the commemoration. What clearly helped to present Land Day as a unifying Palestinian symbol was its early adoption by Palestinian leaders outside Israel. From the declaration of the general strike on 6 March, 1976, the PLO was active in supporting the strike and attempted to extend it to include Palestinians everywhere.56 The PLO also incorporated Land Day into its official ethos and has commemorated it annually in its publications and with organized rallies. The first years following Land Day were years of rapprochement between the PLO and the communists in Israel, with an intensification of their contacts and the publication of mutual compliments in their official publications.57 Later, Land Day was declared an official holiday by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which was established in 1994. Therefore, Land Day as a symbol of Palestinian unity was common in the rhetoric of both communist and nationalist Palestinian leaders in Israel. Before

54  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

the first anniversary, Saliba Khamis of the DFPE, who played a pivotal role in organizing the Land Day strike as the founder of the Land Committee, wrote: [W]e emphasize that what happened to the Arab people [in Israel] is, in a microcosm, the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people wherever it is. The aggression shattered the claim of the dominating Zionist leadership that they consider the Arabs as Israeli citizens, even if of a second class [ . . . ] All the Arabs, in Israel’s eyes, are enemies. There is no difference between those who reside in the Green Line and those outside of it.58

At the same time, the communists were careful not to let the PLO take too much credit on Land Day and according to Nabih Bashir, they even marginalized the role of the PLO on Land Day.59 Keeping Land Day as the “property” of the Palestinians in Israel was also a matter of prestige within the Palestinian sphere. Saliba Khamis epitomized this attitude on the fourth Land Day anniversary (1980): Each part of the Arab-Palestinian people has its own day, and we, the part of this people in Israel have our day, during which we remind the rulers of Israel that we are a living people that will not give up its rights and its national dignity.60

In addition, following Land Day the communists had faced the growing challenge of nationalists, who now dared to confront them publicly and to accuse them of hijacking the struggle and denying the Palestinian national identity of the Arabs in Israel.61 The most vocal organization representing this tendency in the 1970s was the Sons of the Village (abnaa’ al-balad), a secular nationalist movement founded in 1972 in the Triangle calling for the abolishment of ­Israel’s identity as a Jewish state. In 1976, on the twentieth anniversary of the Kafr Qasim massacre (following Land Day), its members used the anniversary for distributing fliers attacking the communists.62 This emerging challenge pushed some communist leaders to clarify their position on the question of identity and its relation to Land Day. Tubi was especially explicit in drawing a clear distinction between Palestinians inside Israel and other Palestinians and stating that Land Day was a distinct symbol of the former. In a long essay published in April 1978, he repeatedly argued that Land Day is a symbol of the steadfastness of the Arab people in Israel. He clarified that the Arabs in Israel belong to the Arab Palestinian people, but “they participate in their own particular way, stemming from the circumstances in which they have been living throughout the last thirty years.” He ex-

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 55

plicitly blamed the Sons of the Village for fracturing the unity and argued that those who use the slogan: “The Galilee and Hebron—one battle, one fate” . . . push this people into an impasse . . . In this way of struggle the fate of the Galilee would be like the fate of Hebron and not the other way around. The dream of Begin63 and the supporters of the Greater Land of Israel will come true together by causing a complete paralysis of the Arab masses in Israel.64

Three decades earlier Tubi had highlighted Israeli citizenship in order to prevent the expulsion of Palestinian ID holders from the newly established State of Israel.65 The same calculated approach is echoed in this text—too much identification with the Palestinians who are not citizens might downgrade the rights of the citizens and make them similar to the diminished rights of the non-­ citizens. Only a decade later, slogans of Palestinian unity in Land Day ceremonies, such as “from Khan Yunis to Jenin, one people who won’t give up!” and “From Sakhnin to Beirut, one people who won’t die!” would become unquestionable, but at this early stage prominent leaders attempted to confront them. Later, the official announcement of the Land Committee before Land Day stated that “this day is a national holiday of the masses of the Palestinian people in Israel,”66 a text that most likely reflected a compromise between various perspectives on the desired level of distinction of Palestinian citizens from non-citizens. Nationalists criticized communists for what they considered to be blurring the national meaning of Land Day. On the tenth Land Day anniversary in 1986, the poet Fawzi ‘Abdallah published a column in al-Watan, the Progressive List bulletin, where he wrote: It has become clear that the struggle over Land Day is a struggle over the essence of the lives of the Arabs in this country (diyar). What is at stake is whether the Arabs in this country will be Israeli sectors without a distinct national identity, or will they be Palestinians courageously demanding all their national rights. 67

Until 1987 the annual commemorations were guided by the Land Committee, so the communist activists who dominated the committee could dictate its line. They attempted to monitor the slogans in the central rallies, to ensure the exclusion of what they called muzayadat (exaggerations). This term referred to illegal actions but frequently also to slogans that too explicitly blurred the Green line. The Committee of Arab Mayors, in which the nationalist Progressive List and

56  THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY

the Sons of the Village were marginally involved, backed up the decisions of the Land Committee. Its support was crucial because Arab mayors had the resources and facilities to maintain the commemorations. The Progressive List was represented on the Land Committee but failed to influence its decisions; therefore, in some years in the mid-1980s the party organized separate Land Day ceremonies. However, these separate ceremonies were not very successful because even the Sons of the Village participated in the events organized by the Land Committee. In the same period the communists attempted as well, with significant success, to impose a ban on Palestinian flags. The opposition of the communists to the flag was not ideological but tactical. When demonstrators in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip raised Palestinian flags, al-Ittihad reported this information with much pride. Inside Israel the Palestinian flag was outlawed in 1980, and the insistence of the DFPE on limiting itself to legal protest led to various flagrelated, violent confrontations between the DFPE and nationalist activists.68 A related controversy was also a tactical one—whether to strike or not on Land Day. The DFPE tended to be very careful with the strike weapon while nationalists tried to turn the strike into a tradition. At the preliminary meeting of the Land Committee in 1979 to plan Land Day, a controversy about the strike deteriorated into physical violence between communists and ­ nationalists. ­During Land Day itself that same year, there was a brawl in a high school in Umm al-Fahm between supporters of a strike and its opponents.69 Beginning in 1988, decisions about central Land Day commemoration were made by FUC, which served as an umbrella organization and included the Committee of Arab Mayors, the Land Committee, and other elements. In 1989 the relative power of the communists in FUC was undermined after they suffered losses in several municipalities in the local elections; their almost absolute power to shape the commemoration was weakened. One might ask who the winner was in the communist-nationalist controversy. There is no doubt that in the long term the national stream has been tremendously successful in embedding symbols of Palestinian national identity and slogans of Palestinian national solidarity in Land Day commemorations. The elements of Palestinian national identity and solidarity dominate the contemporary Land Day ceremonies. At the same time, the aspiration of Tubi to make Land Day a distinct political myth of the Palestinians in Israel also has been successful. While Land Day commemoration is practiced by Palestinians inside and outside Israel, the scale of popular participation of Palestinians inside Israel is significantly larger and incomparable to other locations. In addition,

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 57

whereas for Palestinians in Israel, Land Day has been the major date on their political calendar since 1976, for Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Lebanon, it has been only one day among a long list of memorial days. Furthermore, Land Day has become a major expression of the strategic choice that enjoys a wide consensus among Palestinians in Israel—to fight for their rights in a non-violent, popular political struggle within the parameters of Israeli law. For Palestinians living under military rule in the West Bank, ­Israeli law is not a source of legitimate authority and, as non-citizens, acting from within the Israeli political system is not an available option. Furthermore, while inside the Green Line the ability of the authorities to restrict commemoration was somewhat limited by the rule of law, in the occupied territories, the military authorities could easily ban even peaceful gatherings, which they did on several occasions.70 This difference had been especially evident in Land Day events during the two Palestinian uprisings in the occupied territories (1987– 1993 and 2000–2004). Whereas the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were usually under curfew and violent clashes resulted in death and injuries, inside the Green Line, demonstrations were held in full coordination with the police. Nadim Rouhana illustrated this gap in the following description, referring to the 1989 commemoration of Land Day inside the Green Line: Parents, confident that no clashes with police would ensue (organizers often encourage the police not to interfere or even to remain outside the Arab town in order to avoid tension), carried their children on their shoulders. While Arab and Jewish speakers gave speeches, participants could buy drinks, coffee, sandwiches, and barbecued meat, giving the event a coloring of a festive “happening.”71

Here again the paradox of Palestinian commemoration in Israel surfaces—the rhetoric of Palestinian unity is challenged by the difference in political status that dictates the form of commemoration. Rouhana’s description implies yet another element that distinguishes Palestinian commemoration inside and outside Israel and was especially evident in both the Land Day and Kafr Qasim commemorations until 2000: the visible presence of Jewish Israelis as organizers, speakers, and a potential audience. JEWISH CITIZENS IN ARAB COMMEMORATIONS

The inclusion of Jews in commemorative ceremonies of the Kafr Qasim massacre was visible from the very beginning of commemoration. Latif Dori, an Iraqi-born Jew and a member of the Zionist Mapam party, who was the first

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to enter Kafr Qasim after the massacre, has spoken in the commemorative ceremonies since the first anniversary and has frequently taken part in planning them. In 1996, during the fortieth anniversary ceremony, he was declared an honorary citizen by the local council of Kafr Qasim. As an Arab-Jewish party, the Communist Party has been the major supporter of joint politics. This partnership was rooted in the universalistic communist ideology and, possibly, the Jewish-Arab characteristic also gave the Arab members psychological assurance against the disaster of becoming refugees like their fellow Palestinians.72 Some of the Arab party leaders were personally invested in Arab-Jewish partnership since they were married to Jewish Israeli women (Emile Toma, Saliba Khamis); others had indirect family relations with Jews (Tawfiq ­Tubi’s daughter-in-law is Jewish). Accordingly, the presentation of the commemoration as a joint civic project of progressive Arabs and Jews in the communist press was common. Before the tenth anniversary of the massacre, Saliba Khamis wrote in an editorial in al-Ittihad: We, and all the aware democratic masses, do not commemorate to inflame national grudges and hatreds. No. We want a joint action, Jewish, Arab, for the tenth commemoration of the massacre. This action should be a joint struggle and joint invitation for democratic life based on equality, peace, brotherhood of peoples, and respect of mutual rights.73

Following Land Day in April 1976, Tubi made a similar declaration: The events of 30 March proved that the Arab masses are not alone in their struggle against the policy of national oppression and in support of their legitimate rights. They received the support and encouragement from the Jewish democratic forces, and this element has great importance for the resistance against the racist Judaization policy.74

Following the Kafr Qasim ceremony in 1976, Al-Ittihad reported an especially visible presence of Jewish participants. Joseph Algazy, a prominent Jewish member of the Communist Party who was among the ceremony organizers, hypothesized that the brutality of the police during Land Day shocked certain circles in the Jewish Israeli left who had come to express their solidarity in Kafr Qasim.75 The Hebrew daily Davar reported that when a Land Day rally was first organized in the Naqb/Negev in 1979, one-third of the 700 participants were Jews.76 Such a high proportion has probably never reoccurred, but Jewish speakers

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 59

have been included in the annual Land Day rallies since 1977. In addition, in the 1980s and 1990s Jewish citizens were seen as a major audience of the commemoration. Before each Land Day, the Land Committee organized a regular press conference in Tel Aviv for the Hebrew media. The ceremonies of the thirtieth anniversary of the Kafr Qasim massacre were prepared by a special committee of fifteen people, three of them Jewish. The 1986 central ceremony was recorded on film, which offers insights on the significance of Jewish citizens as participants, as well as a target audience. Three out of the twelve invited speakers at the event were Jewish. The mayor, ‘Abd ­al-Rahim ‘Isa, who was the emcee of the event, frequently translated his words into Hebrew. He read many telegrams of sympathy sent by Arab and Jewish organizations and celebrated the fact that even the right-wing Herut Youth sent such a message. When ‘Isa declared that a press conference would take place after the ceremony, he said it in Hebrew, implying that he expected members of the Hebrew media to attend. ‘Isa also took the opportunity to read a report from the Hebrew newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, which mistakenly reported that Fatah activists who killed an ­Israeli soldier were from Kafr Qasim. “They made us a village of murderers!” He protested in Hebrew, “This village extols co-existence of peace and equality, Jews and Arabs live here together and will have to continue to live here together!” The mayor’s anger over the association of his village with the armed struggle, and his insistence on keeping a safe distance from the struggle, was a common pattern of the commemorative repertoire of the Palestinians in Israel. Needless to say, calling the Fatah activists who killed the soldier “murderers” is an impossible scenario in a major Palestinian commemorative event outside Israel. Almost all Arab speakers thanked the Jewish organizations and individuals who came to express their solidarity. Muhammad Mi‘ari, the Progressive List leader, complained that Jewish parties did not publish any announcement for the thirtieth anniversary and also that the Hebrew newspapers did not mention it, a protest that indicated his interest in the perspective of the Hebrew media. Especially remarkable was the closing speech by the founder of the Islamic Movement, ‘Abdallah Nimr Darwish77. Darwish, who was born in Kafr Qasim in 1948, was convicted of “membership in a terrorist organization” in 1981. After his release from prison in May 1985 as part of a prisoner-exchange deal, he adopted a consistent line of opposition to the use of violence by Palestinian citizens of Israel and called on them to use only legal means. Speaking at his home base in front of a highly supportive audience, Darwish delivered a seventeen-minute-

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long speech. Five minutes of his speech were delivered in Hebrew. He called on Jewish Israelis to reject the policy of Greater Israel, to support the establishment of a Palestinian state, and to agree to the return of the Palestinian refugees. There was one blatant exception to this trend: the rising star of the Islamic Movement, Ra’id Sallah from Umm al-Fahm, who read a poem he authored. In his words, Jews were only a target for a threat: “Ho, tribe of Moses [qawm musa], your house is heading to disaster—if you keep supporting war and ­aggression!” Sallah did not consider Jewish citizens as partners in the same political community, but as a separate tribe, living in their own habitat. The thirtieth anniversary was a precursor of two important processes. The enthusiasm with which Darwish and Sallah were accepted by the crowd was just one more sign of the mounting power of the Islamic Movement that would take over the local council in Kafr Qasim in 1989. In addition, the extra attention given by Darwish to a dialogue with his Jewish audience and the cold shoulder given by Sallah were a precursor to the split in the movement. In 1996 Sallah led the northern faction of the movement that refused to take part in the Knesset election,78 and more broadly, withdrew from a common public sphere with the Jewish citizens of Israel. When Sallah spoke two decades later on the fiftieth anniversary of the Kafr Qasim massacre (2006), he was already a leader of a powerful mass movement that led the deemphasizing of Israeli belonging among Muslim citizens. Under the spiritual leadership of Darwish, Kafr Qasim and the commemoration of the massacre kept its integrative orientation. During the 1990s there was a surge of commemorative activities in Kafr Qasim itself.79 Several commemorative books were published, various monuments were established, and a documentary movie was produced—but there was no change in this orientation. In the introduction to a 1999 poetry collection dedicated to the massacre and published by the Kafr Qasim municipality, mayor Sami ‘Isa (of the southern faction) delineated a list of demands to the State of Israel. Before his call for a just peace based on the establishment of a Palestinian state and respect for the Right of Return, ‘Isa outlined concrete local demands that appeared in one way or another in the annual commemorative rhetoric throughout the 1990s and the 2000s: We do not resent and we do not look for revenge. We look for justice and equity and we demand from the state to make justice with this injured village, and the sign of this justice will be that the state would recognize its sin and the

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 61

government would apologize to the martyrs’ sons, their grandchildren, and the people of their village, and that it would remove its hand from our lands which it unjustly and aggressively looted80 [ . . . ] and that the massacre would be incorporated into the school curriculum of both the Arab and the Jewish sectors in order to warn the generations from the repetition of this horrible massacre.81

The demand for a governmental apology and the call to educate both Arab and Jewish students came from within the discursive boundaries of Israeli citizenship, and they are based on the assumption of an existing shared citizenship between Arabs and Jews. The demand for apology was repeated in a second introduction authored by ‘Abdallah Nimr Darwish.82 Darwish also highlighted the shared citizenship when he promised to get back the confiscated lands by “a peaceful, legal, civilized, and conscious struggle, with the participation of the honorable citizens of this state, Arabs and Jews.”83 In his own poem included in the collection he used a clear pacifist expression: “Our martyrs are the soldiers of peace.” The integrative orientation of the Kafr Qasim commemoration peaked in the late 1990s when government ministers were included among the speakers in the ceremonies: Moshe Katsav in 1997 and Yossi Beilin in 1999. Katsav, who was then the Minister of Arab Affairs, was invited by the local council and represented the right-wing government on the podium. This was too much even for DFPE activists who protested his presence vocally.84 Mayor Ibrahim Sarsur (the future leader of the southern faction of the Islamic Movement) explained his decision to invite Katsav: The residents appreciate very much the minister’s readiness to participate in the ceremony and they hope that, as a result, the authorities would stop referring to the victims of the massacre as “victims of a work accident” as the National Insurance Institute does, but as war victims for every purpose.85

Sarsur revealed some of the implications of the dominant role of a local council in the commemoration: aside from their relative autonomy that allowed the politicization of commemoration, pragmatic and instrumental local considerations frequently gained much weight in shaping the public display of ­memory. These considerations have not fully overlapped with a national ideological agenda. Local leaders were more likely to highlight their Israeli citizenship to optimize their ability to gain resources from the central government. Although public protest against non-Zionist Jews has been extremely rare at Land Day ceremonies, not everyone welcomed the presence of Jewish speakers

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from Zionist parties on the stage. At the 1990 Land Day ceremony, the inclusion of Zionist speakers faced a protest from some Son of the Village activists who interrupted the speech of Haim Oron (then a member of the Zionist Mapam party). These activists called out: “Zionists go home; we don’t want to see Zion­ ists here.”86 The event devolved into a fist fight between Son of the Village activists and other members. Oron’s participation was part of his struggle for the rights of Bedouins in the south, and Land Day was for him just another opportunity to express public support for their civic struggle. For the protesters against him, his participation challenged their attempt to shape Land Day primarily as a Palestinian national day. In 1994, a member of the Knesset (MK) of the Labor Party Shmuel Avital joined Oron to speak at a commemorative Land Day rally in Rahat.87 ‘Abd al-Hakim Mufid, a journalist who previously had been a member of the Son of the Village and then moved to the Islamic Movement, wrote about this occurrence: “Is there something sadder than speakers of the Labor Party climbing the stages of Land Day to ‘congratulate’ the masses on their ‘holiday’?”88 Mufid’s protest was an expression of the gap between local activists with a concrete agenda of protecting their lands and ideologically motivated activists who insisted on contextualizing the local struggle within the broader national narrative. COMMEMORATION AND THE RELIGIOUS-SECULAR DIVIDE

While nationalists and communists usually have been divided about national versus civic aspects of Land Day, these two secular groups have been united against the attempts of the Islamic Movement to “Islamize” the commemoration of Land Day. There are different perspectives on the historical relation of the Islamists to Land Day. The common communist narrative is that the Islamist activists were antagonistic to Land Day commemoration, whereas the common narrative among Islamists denies antagonism. However, the lack of publications by the Islamic Movement until the mid-1980s makes it difficult to accurately narrate the evolution of the movement’s relation to Land Day. The first mayor of the Islamic Movement, Kamal Rayan from Kafr Bara, participated in the Land Day mayors’ preliminary meeting of the Triangle region in 1984.89 The movement’s representatives started to deliver speeches in local Land Day rallies (or in separate Land Day events) in the late 1980s. Interestingly, however, in the movement’s monthly magazine al-Sirat that appeared between 1987 and 1989, Land Day was not mentioned even once (while the massacre of Kafr Qasim received

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 63

much attention). It is possible that this ambiguous picture reflects the diversity inside the Islamic Movement at the time. Only beginning in the early 1990s did the Islamic Movement’s adoption of Land Day become unquestionable. The communists have highlighted their leading role in initiating the original Land Day and considered it not only a national achievement but also an achievement for the party. As a result, after the Islamic Movement fully adopted Land Day, a frequent theme in its commemorative rhetoric was refuting the link between Land Day and the communists. The Islamic Movement argued repeatedly that Land Day was a spontaneous collective act that was not organized by any party.90 In 1995 ‘Abd al-Hakim Mufid wrote that Land Day was a failure of the “Israeli Communist Party” because it expressed the national belonging that this party opposed.91 Because of its policy, he argued, “Land Day died on the day it was born.” The entrance of the Islamic Movement to the field of Land Day commemoration led to frequent confrontations around its character. The use of Islamic religious slogans in rallies antagonized the communists. Many of them saw these slogans as contradicting both the principle of cross-confessional Palestinian national unity, as well as Arab-Jewish partnership—both central to the communist view of Land Day. For the Islamic Movement, the mixed-gender crowd on Land Day was an undesirable phenomenon. In Kafr Qasim, they did not have the same problem because the Islamic Movement controlled the local council starting in 1989, and the council oversaw the ceremonies. Even before that, though, as evident from the film of the 1986 ceremony, women and men were ­separated. However, secular forces have been more influential in shaping Land Day commemoration, and the repetitive demand of the Islamic Movement to separate men and women in the central rallies was rejected. The issue of women’s inclusion was especially controversial in the Galilee where the population is more s­ ecular. In 1993, the tension led to a violent clash in the ceremony in Deir Hanna that was followed by police intervention, ending the rally ­prematurely. On the following day, the main headline in al-Ittihad was the slogan: “­National unity: the boys with the girls.”92 In the following year ­al-Ittihad dedicated a long article to the role of women in Land Day, who “demonstrated heroism, responsibility, and awareness no less than the men.”93 This religious-secular conflict shapes the way Land Day is remembered. The list of traditional Land Day ­heroes of the DFPE, who had been almost exclusively male, was extended to include women.

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LAND DAY LEADS TO THE COMMEMORATION OF NAKBA

Until 1998 Land Day and the Kafr Qasim massacre anniversary were the two focal points of temporal commemoration by the Palestinians in Israel. Like the commemoration of the Kafr Qasim massacre, Land Day became a platform for protest on various political issues as well. It seems that Land Day itself provided the confidence needed for the public discussion of the Nakba. The Majd ­al-Kurum events in 1977 are one early sign of this process. On 10 November 1977 Israeli authorities destroyed an unlicensed house in Majd al-Kurum. During the protest riots that broke out in the village, a young Palestinian named Ahmed Masri was killed. In the same way that al-Ittihad promoted the myth of Land Day by relying on Kafr Qasim, now Land Day was used to emphasize the political relevance of the Majd Al-Kurum events. The main headline in al-Ittihad on the following day was “A seventh Land Day martyr fell in Majd al-Kurum.”94 Covering the densely attended funeral, al-Ittihad mentioned: “The general form was a copy of the annual memorial day for the land martyrs and the twentieth memorial day of the massacre of Kafr Qasim, as implied by the slogan carried in front of the coffin: “The martyr of Majd ­al-Kurum embraces Land Day martyrs.”95 The coffin was brought to the Spring Square in the middle of the village where ten thousand people gathered. On 5 November 1948, in the exact same square, IDF soldiers had executed five men as a form of collective punishment for what the soldiers considered to be a reluctance to hand over the remaining arms in the village.96 Both on the funeral day and on the fortieth-day ceremony, speakers at the stage made reference to the 1948 massacre and linked the new martyr to the past martyrs.97 These references constituted an early and significant sign of the emerging drive to carve out a public space for the commemoration of the Nakba, as well as to emphasize the historical continuity of the Palestinian struggle and ­sacrifice. Public expressions by internally displaced Palestinians (persons who were expelled from their lands in 1948, but who remained within the area that became the state of Israel and became citizens) longing for their villages appeared even earlier, but references to the 1948 massacres were much less common and were considered more risky.98 In addition, as early as the early 1980s, the commemorative repertoire of Land Day included organized visits to the ruins of depopulated villages. From the moment that the Nakba began to find a place in a formal public commemoration, its weight was too significant to remain only a secondary topic.

THE KAFR QASIM MASSACRE AND LAND DAY 65

The Nakba entered the canonical political calendar of Palestinians in Israel from the back door, but in 1998 it eventually appeared as an independent subject of temporal commemoration. Soon after this development, the killing of thirteen Palestinians by the Israeli police in October 2000 signaled the emergence of the fourth date on the political calendar. The developments of these last two foci of temporal commemoration and their implications for the commemoration of the first two dates are the topic of the next chapter.

3

THE POLITICAL CALENDAR IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

the two most recent additions to the canonized political calendar represent two major tendencies in Palestinian commemoration in Israel. First, the addition of the Nakba to the political calendar was an important step toward a growing similarity between the commemorative repertoire of Palestinian citizens and non-citizens. The events of October 2000 (al-Aqsa Day), on the other hand, are commemorated exclusively by Palestinians inside Israel. The commemorative rhetoric on this day is certainly embedded within the broader Palestinian national narrative, but it includes a strong emphasis on redefining Israeli citizenship—not necessarily denying it. Both developments have become evident in all four memorial days on the political calendar. THE EMERGENCE OF A MEMORIAL DAY FOR THE NAKBA

The late addition of the Nakba to the political calendar of the Palestinian citizens of Israel stands in contrast to the continuous commemoration of the date by Palestinians elsewhere. As early as 1949, one year after the establishment of the State of Israel,1 15 May was marked in several West Bank cities (under Jordanian rule) by demonstrations, strikes, the raising of black flags, and v­ isits of the graves of the 1948 martyrs. These events were organized by worker and student associations, cultural and sports clubs, scouts clubs, committees of refugees, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Palestinian newspaper al-Difa‘ (now published in East Jerusalem), provided detailed reports on this protest. The speakers in these gatherings blamed the Arab regimes and the Arab League for failing to save Palestine. Al-Difa‘ reported a very emotional atmosphere, of demonstrators who were crying and swearing to “return the wheels when an 67

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opportunity will come up.”2 By the late 1950s, the 15th of May would be known in the Arab world as Palestine Day, mentioned by the media in Arab and Muslim countries as a day of international solidarity with Palestine. The reviving Palestinian national movement of the late 1950s included 15 May on its calendar. Every year the Fatah bulletin, Falastinuna, dedicated detailed analytical texts dealing with the meaning of the day and the lessons of the 1948 disaster. Since the late 1960s, with the emergence of other commemorations celebrating the armed struggle and the revolutionary spirit (See Chapter 6), 15 May was temporarily somewhat marginalized. Still, in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and in refugee camps in Lebanon, 15 May continued to be commemorated by demonstrations and strikes. Inside Israel, none of these occurred until the 1990s. This was due to two main factors: the disciplinary power of the Israeli state authorities and the ambivalence of the Communist Party toward this commemoration. The disciplinary mechanisms used by the state are crucial for explaining the delay, and they are discussed in detail in Chapter 7. At this point, though, it is important to elaborate on the historical ambivalence of the Communist Party. As the dominant power in mobilizing national sentiments among Palestinian citizens, the boundaries of politicized commemoration set by the communists until the 1980s were very influential, and they were reflected as well in the controversies over the commemoration of the Nakba in 1998. The Communist Party has never avoided dealing with the Nakba per se. There is no doubt that the party did raise the issue of Palestinian refugees from a very early point—in the middle of the expulsion campaigns themselves, as well as in following years.3 However, the party avoided a temporal commemoration of the Nakba. Any meaningful choice of date would have been interpreted as mourning the mere existence of the state, whether it was 15 May, 2 November, or Israel’s Independence Day (celebrated according to the Hebrew lunar calendar, in the second half of April or the first half of May). Although the party accepted Israel’s right to exist, its leaders differed in their views on whether this was an a priori right to exist or an ex post facto right. Following the acceptance of the 1947 UN partition plan and the subsequent outbreak of violence, Jewish leaders of the party (belonging to the then-Palestinian Communist Party) encouraged party members to join the Jewish militia, the Haganah. Some Arab leaders of the party (belonging to the National Liberation League) tried to organize military opposition to the Haganah.4 Meir Vilner, the general secretary of the party from 1965 to 1990, even signed the Israeli Declaration of Independence.

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The ­Soviet Union supported the partition plan, and the Communist Party was known to be extremely loyal to the Kremlin. Significantly, until the 1980s the presidents of the State of Israel were invited to the general congress of the party, and the Israeli flag was raised at its annual conferences until the 1990s. These symbolic aspects were part of the party’s attempts to promote a civic, secular form of non-Zionist Israeli patriotism shared by Arab and Jewish citizens. A shared calendar for Arabs and Jews could have supported this civic identity. While these efforts focused on 1 May, the international socialist workers’ day, this day was not an official public holiday in Israel. As the most important official public holiday in Israel not rooted in Jewish religious tradition, Independence Day was considered to have a higher potential for cross-confessional inclusion if reinterpreted to fit a universalistic ideology. In addition, at least until the late 1980s, the party made a significant effort to appeal to their Jewish constituency,5 which gradually, but consistently, abandoned it, and the adoption of Independence Day might have been part of this effort. Accordingly, until 1987, the party did not reject the celebrations on Independence Day but instead tried to de-Zionize the day both by reshaping its meaning as a civic holiday and by presenting the 1948 war as an anti-imperialist war rather than a Zionist war. This rhetoric did not change even after the 1965 split in the party that left al-Ittihad in the hands of the faction that was considered to be closer to Arab nationalism. Before and after 1965, al-­Ittihad published the party’s warm congratulations for Independence Day: In these days the people of Israel celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. Independence Day is a sacred holiday in every people’s life. We remember the sons who fell in the battle for the independence of Israel, for disconnecting the people of Israel from the colonialist countries and making it free in its homeland. The best sons of the Jewish and Arab people [sic] in Palestine fought against the foreign British rule of our country, for the liberation of the two peoples and their national independence. For those who cherish the future of our country, the Day of Israel’s Independence symbolizes the love of the homeland and the hope for its development, prosperity, peace, and security.6

It is noteworthy that al-Ittihad published these texts as formal announcements of the party, but none of the writers of al-Ittihad ever signed his or her name. In the 1970s these congratulations were sarcastically criticized in public by the

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communists’ political rivals,7 and their enthusiastic tone significantly dwindled in the same decade. Furthermore, for many years 15 May was not included among the dozens of memorial days celebrated in al-Ittihad. The first time a direct editorial reference to the date appeared (as opposed to reports on demonstrations in the 1967 occupied territories) was in 1986. In a short article the editor explained that 15 May had become a day of international solidarity with the Palestinian people because this was the day two states were supposed to be established, but the establishment of one of them, the Arab state of Palestine, was prevented by imperial forces.8 In other words, al-Ittihad did not protest the UN partition plan, but rather its incomplete implementation. By this unconventional justification, al-Ittihad adopted 15 May without questioning Israel’s legitimacy. Still, this was a low key reference, not an inclusion in the canonic political calendar. The Battle over the Date

With the relative relaxation of the Israeli public sphere since the 1980s (See Chapter 7), public reference to the Nakba became more common in communist publications, as well as in publications of other emerging political forces. This development, however, did not include the marking of a specific date on the calendar for the Nakba. The establishment of the PNA in 1994, as part of the Oslo process, created the state-like mechanisms that are so important for the creation of a stable, institutionalized political calendar. The Palestinians in Israel, although not part of the PNA, were influenced by this process. The decision of the PNA to commemorate Nakba Day in 15 May 1998 inspired Palestinians in Israel to take another step in the formalization of the memory of the Nakba and to include it on their political calendar. It is likely as well that the preparations for the high profile celebrations of Israel’s fiftieth Independence Day were a contributing factor. Among the four major events commemorated in the Palestinian political calendar, however, the Nakba is the only one that has not yet gained a stable and agreed upon date. Since 1999 the PNA has commemorated Nakba Day on 15 May (in 1998 it was commemorated on 14 May), but inside Israel this date usually has been observed only by local or partisan events. In most years since 1999, the central commemorative event of the Palestinians in Israel has been the March of Return, a mass procession during Israel’s Independence Day to the ruins of a depopulated village. The choice of date was controversial from the beginning, but the main reasons for the controversy have changed. In March 1998, the FUC met to discuss

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ways to commemorate the Nakba. At this meeting the members disagreed on the desired relation to the celebrations of Israel’s fiftieth anniversary. The disagreements focused on whether the Nakba commemoration should be presented as a “mirror image” of the independence celebrations (emphasizing Israeli responsibility), or should the commemoration avoid intentional emphasis on this linkage so that the choice would not be seen as provocative.9 The atmosphere during the discussion was tense. Rafiq Haj Yahya, the mayor of Taybeh who was also a member of the Zionist Labor Party, even attempted to prevent the discussion about the Nakba commemoration, arguing that “there are more important i­ ssues.”10 Later MK Walid Sadiq Haj Yahya, another Taybeh resident and member of another Zionist party (Meretz), said on an Arabic television talk show that while he was not opposed to commemorating the Nakba, he was concerned about the timing—referring to the implicit linkage between the fiftieth anniversary of ­Israel’s independence and the commemoration of the Nakba.11 On the other side of this controversy, Raja Ighbariya from the Sons of the Village directly stated in a discussion about the Nakba commemoration on a Hebrew talk show: “Your Independence is our Nakba,” a statement that, slightly modified, would be adopted as the March of Return’s main slogan in the post-October 2000 era. Although in the 1998 FUC meeting it was decided that the central event would take place on 15 May, in the following years, 15 May was overshadowed by the March of Return on Israel’s Independence Day. In fact, only twice, in 1998 and 2012, was 15 May celebrated officially in a unified ceremony shared by all political forces represented in the FUC. Since October 2000, however, the common arguments in favor of each date have changed, both because the objection of the DFPE (the “communists”) to direct confrontation with the mainstream Jewish public has eroded and because the power of Zionist parties among the Palestinians in Israel has shrunk drastically.12 In the post-2000 controversy, both sides usually do not deny the importance of commemorating the Nakba on both dates, but since it is impractical to organize two mass events of tens of thousands of people twice within days or weeks, every political movement or organization should decide on its own as to which one of the two dates to commemorate. The supporters of commemorating the Nakba on Israeli Independence Day have highlighted the need to contrast the Palestinian and the Zionist narratives and to confront the state and the hegemonic Israeli view of 1948. In addition, they argue, many Palestinians who were socialized in the Israeli education system were accustomed to celebrating Independence Day until the late 1970s,

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and therefore commemorating the Nakba on the same day is an “antidote” to this false consciousness. A third argument is practical: since Independence Day is an official holiday in Israel anyway, it is easier to mobilize a large number of participants who have the day off from work and school. Those who advocate for 15 May, on the other hand, argue that this is the date adopted by Palestinians everywhere, and the Palestinians in Israel should express their belonging to the Palestinian people by sharing the same calendar. Some of the 15 May advocates are concerned that adopting a date sanctioned by the State of Israel implicitly recognizes its legitimacy.13 The March of Return and the Religious-Secular Divide

Beyond these explicit arguments, however, at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the bifurcation of the Nakba’s temporal commemoration has become related mainly to an uncompromising struggle regarding the role of Islam in the national struggle and the place of women in it. To understand this conflict we should go back to the early 1990s when personal memories of the Nakba started to gradually gain a politically organized shape. This transition was expressed by publications of personal memories in newspapers and books, but above all it had a spatial dimension: family pilgrimages to the depopulated villages became institutionalized in a process named by the social scientists Efrat Ben Ze’ev and Issam Aburaiya as “middle-ground politics” that bridges the gap between “Palestine as an abstract notion and the concrete daily concerns of the Palestinians.”14 Several grass roots organizations were responsible for this transformation, but two of them have had the most tangible impact. The first is the National Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Uprooted in Israel (hereafter, Committee of the Uprooted), an umbrella organization of the internally displaced Palestinians. The second central actor in the field has been the Islamic Movement through its financial arm, the Al-Aqsa Institute. While these two actors operated in cooperation in the 1990s, in the twenty-first century their differences have become an important factor that affects the Nakba commemoration. This collision reflects a broader division between secular and religious Arab NGOs, which the political scientist Amal Jamal has described as “almost completely separate, parallel civil societies.”15 The most significant actors responsible for the cultivation of public memory of 1948 are the internally displaced Palestinians. These are Palestinians who were uprooted from their villages in 1948, but who remained in Israel and be-

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came Israeli citizens. The continuous attempts of Israeli governments to efface the refugee identity of the internally displaced failed,16 and instead the second generation became politically active and assertive. The adoption of the twostate solution by the PLO in 1988, as well as the Madrid-Oslo processes, raised concerns that their issue would be sacrificed.17 Since 1992 internally displaced citizens established numerous local committees and in 1995, these committees were united under the Committee of the Uprooted. The name of the committee intentionally include the title “uprooted” rather than “refugees” to distinguish the internally displaced Palestinians from other Palestinian refugees.18 The Committee of the Uprooted has worked both at the local and national level by organizing community activities, using local media, and encouraging volunteers to maintain the buildings and sites that remain in the depopulated villages. One clear indication of the relative importance of Nakba commemoration among the uprooted is the finding from the 2010 survey conducted by sociologist Sammy Smooha: two-thirds of the interviewees who belonged to uprooted families reported participating in the Nakba demonstration compared to only one-third of other interviewees.19 In a parallel path, since the early 1990s the Islamic Movement started to organize its activists for restoration of cemeteries, shrines, and mosques, which frequently were the only remnants of depopulated villages.20 While the northern faction of the Islamic Movement would become the most popular party/­movement among the internally displaced Palestinians,21 this political orientation has not been reflected in the composition of the Committee of the Uprooted. Although the committee defines itself as nonpartisan, its founders and central members have been affiliated with secular movements and parties, and so far none of its members has been publicly identified with the Islamic Movement. The Committee of the Uprooted accompanied its pilgrimage and restoration activities with a rhetoric focused on the Right of Return, whereas the Islamic Movement emphasized the religious sacredness of the sites. The partial overlap of goals between the two created a temporary but productive cooperation between them. The most vital contribution of the Committee of the Uprooted is the annual March of Return. The march emerged as an intersection of two traditions, the first of which was the practice of private family visits to the destroyed villages. Under military rule Israel’s Independence Day was the only time that refugees and their families were allowed to visit the sites of their old homes. To a certain extent the March of Return is an institutionalization and popularization

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of these private traditions.22 This institutionalization was a gradual process that had started already in the early 1980s. In November 1984, for example, hundreds of people marched from the entrance of the depopulated village Kafr Bir‘im to the church in its center to commemorate the thirty-sixth anniversary of their expulsion. Representatives of the DFPE and the Progressive List delivered speeches in which they contextualized the Kafr Bir‘im case in the broader issue of the Palestinian refugees. Leaders of the Kafr Bir‘im community were more cautious and referred to their particular demand to return to their village. This orientation enabled them to gain the sympathy of mainstream Zionist parties. Three of them, Mapam, Ratz, and Shinuy, as well as the Peace Now movement greeted the participants by telegram.23 The second origin is the diversification of the commemorative practices of Land Day, which already in the 1980s had begun to include organized visits to depopulated villages. On Land Day 1995 the Committee of the Uprooted organized a rally in the depopulated village of Ghabisiyya in the western Galilee. At the rally, the elders of Ghabisiyya told the participants the story of their expulsion. The organizers hung on the wall of the village’s mosque the names of dozens of depopulated villages along with signs with a clear demand to implement the return, such as: “We will not forget” and “The Right of Return is a ­sacred right.” However, being aware of Jewish Israeli sensitivity to the issue, the demand to return was mixed with a pacifist message: “The road to peace will pass through our village,” “The meaning of peace is the return to the land and home,” “The land is wide enough for everyone,” and “We demand the implementation of the Supreme Court decision from 1950.” The last slogan is especially important for understanding the cautious tactics of the Committee of the Uprooted. The fact that the March of Return tradition started in Kafr Bir‘im and Ghabisiyya is also indicative of a broader pattern of cautious commemoration. In both cases the Supreme Court ruled that the residents should be allowed to return, but in both cases the state has never respected the court’s decision.24 In other words, in these cases the Palestinian claim was backed by an Israeli court decision and therefore they easily could have been framed within the discourse of civil rights, which is less threatening for a Jewish audience. In 1995, the pacifying tone of the Committee of the Uprooted might have been related as well to the expectation that the civic struggle of Kafr Bir‘im and Iqrit communities would bear fruit soon, since at the same time, in spring 1995, a committee appointed by Rabin’s government was in the process of examining a possible return.25

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The rally in Ghabisiyya on Land Day was repeated in the next three annual Land Day commemorations, and representatives from all Arab political parties, including the Islamic Movement, addressed the rally. In 1998 the event was entitled “March of Return,” while Nakba Day was observed separately on 15 May by a mass rally in the ruins of the village of Safuriyya. Since 1999 the March of Return has marched to a different depopulated village every year, and it is conducted on Israel’s Independence Day, usually as the central rally instead of Nakba Day. The number of participants seems to be growing consistently.26 In 1998, when the FUC decided to mark Nakba Day on 15 May at a mass rally, the two factions of the Islamic Movement took part in it, but the Islamist leaders left the event when the female singer Amal Murqus went on stage.27 The Islamic Movements also organized their own events. Because in 1998 the celebration of the Islamic new year fell close to Nakba Day, the two factions of the Islamic Movement called on their supporters to attend “the festival of migration (hijra) and return.” These events gained much more attention in the ­Islamist press than the Nakba Day organized by the FUC. Compared with the southern faction, the northern faction has been much more assertive and ready to confront the secular movements, especially on gender issues. Since 2009 these tendencies of the northern faction have led to an open conflict with the Committee of Uprooted. Unlike the central rallies of Land Day and al-Aqsa Day (see below), which are coordinated by the FUC, the March of Return is organized by the Committee of Uprooted. Although the preparations for the march are coordinated with the FUC, the committee has remained independent in making decisions about the details. Because the Islamic Movement gained relative power at the FUC, it has been able to influence the character of the central ceremonies of Land Day and al-Aqsa Day, but it failed to achieve the same influence on the march. Therefore, the March of Return has kept a blatant secular character, including a mixed male-female crowd, debka dancing, and songs by unveiled female performers. Martyrs have been cherished by a moment of silence, but without Qur’anic verses as is the custom in the other three major dates on the political calendar. The events of Land Day and al-Aqsa Day are much less centralized with many local rallies whose content is defined by the local political balance of power, and therefore they have a broader range of political character. The March of Return, in contrast, is a single unified event, and the Islamic Movement refuses to tolerate its secular orientation.

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The mixed-gender crowd is probably the main concern of the movement, which has had to face a rapid social change in this respect. In 1975 al-Ittihad reported that for the first time women participated in the commemorative procession in Kafr Qasim. In a 2012 survey, on the other hand, an almost equal number of men and women reported at least one-time participation in Land Day or Nakba commemoration.28 In the case of the March of Return, this mixing has been organic to its historical roots because it emerged as a tradition of family a­ ctivity. The northern faction has also grown dissatisfied with the list of s­peakers, which includes Jewish and unveiled female speakers. Anti-Jewish ­Islamist slogans were heard more than once from the ranks of the Islamic Movement at national events while a Jewish speaker delivered a speech.29 For all these reasons, it is clear that the northern faction has adopted a reserved attitude toward the march. Islamist participation in the march has been relatively marginal, and the event has been covered lightly by the print and internet Islamic press. For the movement the march is only one event commemorating the Nakba, not the central one. Since 2008 the northern faction has commemorated the Nakba on 15 May separately in a mass event (leaders of the southern faction attend the event as guests). This is in addition to a separate event for Muslim women, the Festival of Return, which began in 2006 and is held shortly before 15 May. At this event modestly dressed women address the crowd. In 2011 and 2012 the Committee of the Uprooted made a compromise and agreed to separate the “political” part from the “artistic” part of the march, to enable the Islamists to leave the march before unveiled female performers begin their concert. Later on, however, encouraged by the seizing of power by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in summer 2012, the Islamic Movement’s leaders gained further confidence and toughened their insistence on their principles. The Committee of the Uprooted reacted by intentionally positioning women in all key roles at the 2013 March of Return. In 2013 and 2014 the northern faction decided not to call its supporters to participate in the march and its media did not report on it. Practically speaking, then, the movement boycotted the event. ‘Aida Toma-Suleiman, a DFPE member and the first woman member of the FUC, analyzed the reasons for this boycott: In recent years the northern faction of the Islamic Movement raised more than once and on several occasions two issues: its wish to prevent the mixing of men and women in public events and the participation of progressive Jewish forces in the general national events [ . . . ]. The March of Return remained the only

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collective national event whose character the northern faction of the Islamic Movement has not succeeded in dominating and has been unable to subjugate to its customs and world view, especially in that which concerns the status of women and their active participation [ . . . ] Over the past three years, the scene of the movement’s leaders leaving the events while a woman went up to the stage is more an embarrassment to the movement than to the march organizers.”30

Publicly, the movements’ leaders deny that their non-participation in the march is related to these issues, and they consistently justify their reservation for merely procedural reasons, arguing that the event is not organized by the FUC. They did raise these concerns, however, in closed meetings of the FUC.31 •

•

•

As in the case of Land Day, disagreements in the present shape the way the Nakba is remembered. The leaders of the Committee of the Uprooted began to argue that discrimination against women made a decisive contribution to the Palestinian defeat in 1948. In a radio debate about the absence of the Islamic Movement from the march, Wakim Wakim, the founder of the Committee of the Uprooted who played a central role in establishing the March of Return tradition, said: “The marginalization of women, and their distancing from the national leadership, political leadership, and sporting activity in the organizations and institutions of civil society is one of the reasons of the Palestinian Nakba.”32 The withdrawal of the northern faction of the Islamic Movement from the march further emphasized the march’s role as a major stage for displaying secular nationalism. In the 2014 march, the book booth that was located near the central gathering location included only secular literature and scholarship. I have noticed very few veiled women among the thousands of participants. Indeed, activists of the Islamic Movements published angry Facebook posts, referring to the “immodest” appearance of women at the march. While the organizers of the march have always considered the number of participants as an indicator of the development of Palestinian national consciousness, from 2013 they have seen it as well as an indicator of the power of secular nationalism. The Uniqueness of the March of Return in the Palestinian Sphere

Like Land Day, the temporal commemoration of the Nakba looks very different on each side of the border. Nakba Day in the West Bank has been part of the continuous struggle against Israeli military occupation. It frequently has

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been characterized by violent confrontations, including throwing stones and burning tires. In 2014 an IDF sniper killed two demonstrators. In 2011 the confrontational method of protest-commemoration was adopted by Palestinians in Lebanon and Syria who approached the border fence and tried to cross it; the IDF killed nine of them. In contrast, by 2014 the March of Return has already turned into a familyfriendly and peaceful festival with ice cream trucks, free supplies of bottled water, souvenir booths, and a book-selling booth. It is orderly and organized, fully coordinated with the police who prevent Jewish Israeli provocateurs from approaching the participants. Palestinian solidarity, though, is clearly manifested at the symbolic level. Along the path of the march in 2014, the organizers hung large photos of Palestinian refugees and their descendants in the diaspora with accompanying text that stated their names and their villages of origin. The March of Return traditionally begins with the singing of “Mawtani” (my homeland). The political fragmentation of the Palestinian national movement is reflected in the parallel existence of several songs considered as national anthems and, therefore, the choice of any of them has political meaning. The lyrics of “Mawtani” were written by the poet Ibrahim Tuqan, and since the mid-1930s it has been considered an unofficial Palestinian national anthem. During the golden age of pan-Arabism, an Egyptian national song (that would become the official Egyptian national anthem in 1979) “Biladi, Biladi” became popular among Palestinians and was incorporated into the canon of the Fatah movement, but the lyrics were modified to fit the Palestinian context and the revolutionary spirit of Fatah. Soon after, the PLO decided to officially adopt another song as the national anthem—“Fida’i” (the one who sacrifices himself). Following the communist victory in the Nazareth municipal election in 1975, the poet Samih al-Qasim authored new lyrics for “Biladi Biladi,”33 in which patriotic statements were mixed with praise for the party. Since then, the song has been used at many party events, such as conferences and summer camps, as if it was a national anthem. The National Democratic Assembly (NDA) party, established in 1996, has used “Mawtani” for the same purpose. The PNA, established in 1994, officially adopted the PLO anthem, “Fida’i”; however, none of the Arab parties in Israel ever adopted “Fida’i.” Until the establishment of the PNA, the rejection of “Fida’i” might have been related to the tendency to keep a safe distance from the armed struggle. Later, however, the lack of popularity of the PNA among national activists (who see it as a tool of the Israeli occupation) might have added another reason for this rejection. In any case, the choice

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of “Mawtani” reflects the strength of the national stream among the organizers of the March of Return. At the same time, much more than Palestinian commemoration elsewhere, Palestinian memory in Israel is constructed against Jewish Israeli memory. Since 2004 the March of Return has been organized around the title “Their Independence—Our Nakba,” a title that epitomizes the aspiration for contrast. This title has not appeared in Nakba Day events outside the Israeli context. The number of Jewish Israelis who participate in the march is negligible, but some participants still aspire to convey their message to a Jewish audience (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Palestinian activist at the March of Return in 2014 wrapped in a Palestinian flag with a sticker in Hebrew that states: “Nakba, let’s talk about it!” Source: Photo by the author.

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Jewish Israelis play the role not only of the bearers of the counter narrative, but since 2003 a Jewish Israeli representative always is included in the list of speakers, a list carefully crafted in advance by the Committee of the Uprooted. In 2014, when the planned Jewish speaker (Ilan Pappé) was stuck in traffic on the way to the march, the organizers asked another Jewish participant to replace him. In some years a Jewish Israeli representative also was present in the preliminary organizational meetings. This is another expression of the autonomy of the Committee of the Uprooted, which acts independently from the purist forces that gained influence in the FUC and among Palestinians elsewhere. At a time when Palestinian activists in the West Bank increasingly reject cooperation with Jewish I­ sraelis out of concerns of “normalization,” this consistent and public inclusion of Jews in the commemoration has become another significant distinctive marker of the March of Return.34 AL-QUDS AND AL-AQSA DAY

During the same years in which the tradition of the March of Return was established, the fourth anchor of the calendar was added. In early October 2000, at the beginning of the Palestinian uprising known as Intifadat al-Aqsa, riots spread inside the Green Line, and the country witnessed a wave of demonstrations, stone-throwing, and police gunfire against demonstrators that killed thirteen Palestinians. Since 2001, 1 October became an annual day of commemoration in which thousands participate in memorial processions. These processions have become another major stage for displaying Palestinian national symbols, including a sea of Palestinian flags and the collective singing of “Mawtani.” The various memorial monuments that have been erected since 2000 (see Chapter 5) serve as the starting or ending points of these processions. In many Arab schools where the staff is confident enough, teachers discuss the events of October 2000 and their meaning with students. In some years a general strike takes place as well. A central thread in the commemorative discourse of most political forces is the anger and frustration over the fact that Israeli citizenship did not protect the October 2000 victims. This discovery was translated into a reexamination of the meaning of citizenship that led to two distinct patterns of political discourse and practice—both of these patterns are evident in the commemoration of October 2000. The first reaction is a growing tendency to demand collective national rights, the strengthening of autonomous Palestinian institutions inside Israel, and the

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elimination of the ethnocratic elements of the Israeli political system. These are demands to redefine the meaning of Arab citizenship in Israel. Although this orientation is mostly identified with the NDA, it is evident as well in the discourse of other parties, including the DFPE, and to a certain extent in the rhetoric of the southern faction of the Islamic Movement. The second reaction is a complete withdrawal from the Israeli political field and from the discourse of citizenship. The northern faction of the Islamic Movement, which adopted this orientation as its raison d’être after the 1996 split, intensified it following O ­ ctober 2000. An article epitomizing the first approach was published by Nadim Rouhana in Fasl al-maqal on the first anniversary of the October 2000 events: Regardless of the different views, many Palestinians in Israel understand that the basis of their relations with the state has changed. There is a need to redefine their citizenship, which constitutes the basis of their relation with the state, in a way that would take into consideration their history and the history of their people.

This approach would become the basic principle of the Future Vision Documents published in 2006 and 2007.35 As evident in Rouhana’s text, this political reaction is far from being a withdrawal from the Israeli political game, but a call to change its rules. Accordingly, the commemorative discourse has repeatedly emphasized that the October 2000 victims were citizens. Fasl al-maqal ’s editorial on the third anniversary, for example, blamed the state’s military apparatus for killing “the souls of the thirteen citizens who demonstrated in protest processions, without any weapon except the justice of their demands and cause.”36 This approach was accompanied by the demand to give real meaning to this citizenship. Accordingly, the annual announcements published by the FUC emphasize that the memory of the October 2000 martyrs enables the renewal of the struggle for the defense of Palestinians’ “national and civil rights,” two demands that are clearly presented as complementing each other. Indeed, aside from the unambiguous visibility of Palestinian flags in the annual processions and the rhetorical commitment to the unity of the Palestinian people, the particular demands of the Palestinians in Israel as Israeli citizens are evident. For example, every year the demand that the government find and punish the individuals responsible for the killing is repeated (though so far not a single criminal charge has been submitted).

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Palestinian commemoration outside Israel is rarely interested in the identity of the particular individuals who pulled the trigger. If any attempts to bring perpetrators to trial are made, they are not made in Israel but at the international level, and they target political leaders or senior officers. The demand of Palestinians in Israel that the Israeli government exercise its power to bring justice is a demand articulated from within the boundaries of Israeli citizenship. Accordingly, even though Hebrew has a much weaker presence than in past commemorations, it is not absent from the slogans heard during the annual October procession. For example, in the 2011 procession, some of the Arab participants called in Hebrew: “Barak, Barak, the minister of defense, how many children have you killed so far?” (The slogan commonly has been used by Jewish leftist activists against various ministers of defense.) Memorial books published following the events expressed unambiguous protest against the government but not against the idea of a shared citizenship with Jewish citizens. The memorial book for Walid Abu Salih and ‘Imad Ghenayem, published only weeks after the events by the local branch of the Islamic Movement (southern faction) in Sakhnin, included thirty pages of press coverage of the events and their aftermath. Five of these pages dealt with condolence visits by Jewish citizens to the grieving families. The book’s editor Masu‘ud Ghenayem later became a Knesset member in 2009. The growing popularity of the idea that Palestinians need to build their own institutions raises the question of Jewish participation in the commemoration. Under these circumstances, the DFPE, which is an Arab-Jewish party, found itself on the defensive. Following the first anniversary, Ahmad Sa‘ad wrote in al-Ittihad that “our masses declared their national vow to continue their just struggle against the unjust politics of national oppression and racial discrimination by the authorities, and for their right for full equality and full citizenship in this shared homeland.”37 Then Sa‘ad highlighted the participation of Jewish demonstrators in the commemorative events and emphasized the importance of the joint Arab-Jewish struggle. As in the March of Return, Jewish Israelis are among the speakers in the annual October 2000 ceremonies. The northern faction of the Islamic Movement is an exception to the common use of civic discourse (some elements in the Sons of the Village have a similar approach, but their political weight seems to be negligible). Whereas the secular movements and the southern faction of the Islamic Movement use the memory of October 2000 to mobilize a struggle for national and civic rights, the northern faction interprets al-Aqsa Day literally, as a day dedicated

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to the al-Aqsa mosque. During the mass processions the supporters of the Islamic Movement frequently shout the slogan: “By spirit, by blood, we will redeem you, al-Aqsa!” Similarly, Sawt al-haq wal-Hurriyya conducted an inter­ view with the movement’s deputy chair Kamal Khatib before the eleventh anniversary, in which he stated: “After eleven years from the eruption of the al-Aqsa uprising, the plan to destroy al-Aqsa and build the so-called temple continues.”38 This statement was used as the title of the interview. Khatib criticized the secular commemoration of the event that marginalizes al-Aqsa: “There are those who want to strip the religious and national dimension from this uprising, and there are people who talk about ‘the October uprising.’ They do not want to name things by their name, but to disconnect our issues from our noble history.” Khatib did not say it explicitly, but “the elephant in the room” was almost explicit in the text: unlike the Land Day martyrs, all the martyrs of October 2000 were Muslim. The reference to the title of the day is part of a controversy that has accompanied the commemoration from its very beginning. The day gained different titles that varied according to the secular/religious divide. While blatant seculars prefer the term habbat Octobir (the October eruption), the Islamic Movement prefers habbat al-aqsa or yawm al-aqsa (al-Aqsa Day), referring to the event that triggered the uprising—the high profile visit of then leader of the opposition Likud party Ariel Sharon to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. The FUC adopted a compromise to make the title inclusive of Christian Palestinians—yawm al-quds wal-aqsa (the Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Day). This recent term gradually has been adopted even by the secular parties and media, which by 2008 almost abandoned the term habbat Octobir. The giant illustration of the al-Aqsa and ‘Omar mosques that was set as background to the stage in the central rally in 2013 is evidence of the power of the Islamic Movement to shape the content of the al-Quds and al-Aqsa Day. Beyond any doubt, however, the 1 October commemorative events are shared by all political forces of the Palestinians in Israel, regardless of its title. While the commemoration of the Kafr Qasim massacre in the twenty-first century became dominated by the Kafr Qasim local council and the March of Return is dominated by the Committee of the Uprooted, the dominant actors in shaping the October 2000 commemoration of the victims are the FUC and the families of the victims. The families established a committee to coordinate their efforts and have had a strong influence on the content of the annual commemoration. Their representatives are invited to the preliminary meetings of

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the FUC before the annual commemoration, and they have gained high public visibility. In the almost annual controversy over whether a general strike should be announced, the families have always supported the strike and protested when the FUC did not adopt their stand. In contrast, the families of the Land Day victims never even came close to having such an influence. As a result, while Land Day’s commemorative discourse has focused on political dynamics, and the identity of the martyrs was marginal, the identity of the October martyrs became a central element in the commemoration. The image of the thirteen martyrs in the front row of the annual procession has no precedence in Land Day commemorations. Similarly, some of the participants in the march carry with them large photos of individual martyrs. In contrast, in the first years after Land Day, pain over individual loss had already been marginalized, and the emphasis was directed instead to collective prowess rather than to collective mourning. IMPLICATIONS OF THE EVENTS ON THE COMMEMORATION OF KAFR QASIM AND LAND DAY

With the addition of two major commemorations to the Palestinian political calendar, it became crowded. It seems that because of its growing localized orientation, the memory of the Kafr Qasim massacre beyond Kafr Qasim itself was especially vulnerable to this development, and there has been a long-term decline in its centrality as a national mobilizing myth. In 2008, the DFPE Secretary Ayman ‘Odeh complained that: Secretly, the massacre of Kafr Qasim is commemorated, and this is being called “commemoration.” Without a country-wide gathering, without the Follow-Up Committee, without consultation and media, without parties, without private or general invitations—the people of Kafr Qasim, alone, commemorate the massacre of Kafr Qasim. With the persistence of localism the procession begins at 8 a.m., nobody hears about it until it ends, except by word of mouth. When the procession takes place in the middle of the week, it will not find its share in the weekend press, while the Hebrew newspapers are not getting reports and do not report [ . . . ] This situation did not exist twenty years ago. Before that the massacre was a national event for all the sons of our people and many of the democratic Jews.39

‘Odeh’s description might be exaggerated. Representatives of all Arab political movements are present in the annual commemoration, and every Arabic media,

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electronic or print, continues to refer to the massacre on its anniversary. There is a growing gap, however, between the intensity of the reference to the massacre by different political forces. The newspaper of the elitist NDA, Fasl al-Maqal has given little attention to the ceremony in recent years. In 2012, for example, it covered the ceremony only by a brief report on page 13 of the issue. The southern branch of the Islamic Movement—Kafr Qasim is its strongest base—continues to dedicate a great deal of space to the massacre in its news­paper, al-Mithaq. Similarly, while in the twentieth century the massacre was commemorated in numerous locations throughout the country (if not every year, at least on the twentieth, thirtieth, and fortieth anniversaries); in the twenty-first century commemorative gathering outside Kafr Qasim has become rare. One final and decisive indication for the decline of the Kafr Qasim massacre anniversary as a central date on the political calendar is the lack of power struggles around the event. The list of speakers, the approved slogans, or the exact title of the event, are not issues on which the various political forces would clash. Although the lack of public conflicts until the mid-1970s can be easily explained by the weakness of the national and Islamic streams at the time and the almost monopoly of the Communist Party over organized commemoration, their absence today stems from the little potential political capital that could be accumulated through the commemoration. This is very different from the dynamics that have characterized the other three events on the calendar. Land Day has remained a major date on the political calendar and the increase in the number of people reporting participation (see Introduction) is a good indication of that. The number of participants is similar to the number of participants in the Nakba commemoration. In addition, the rate of participants among supporters of major parties and movements is similar: in a 2012 survey supporters of the DFPE, NDA, and the northern branch of the Islamic Movement reported similar levels of participation in Land Day (63, 67, and 69 percent, respectively, reported participation at least once).40 The different rhetoric of party leaders, however, reflected the gap in the level of relative importance they ascribed to Land Day and al-Aqsa Day. The Communist Party was the only viable political force in 1976, and its leaders insist that Land Day’s importance far exceeds that of October 2000. The leadership of the NDA, established only in 1996, tends to ascribe equal importance to the two events.41 Since the Islamic Movement makes an effort to present itself as the defender of the al-Aqsa mosque (supporters of the leader, Ra’ed Sallah, named him “Shaykh al-Aqsa”), its leaders try to turn al-Aqsa Day into the central pillar of the political calendar.

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In both Land Day and Kafr Qasim ceremonies, Jewish citizens are still included among the speakers, although in the case of Land Day this participation is not consistent anymore. Remarkably, the frequent use of Hebrew by Arabic speakers in the central ceremony in Kafr Qasim that was so evident in 1986 has almost vanished. As a general tendency the status of Jewish Israelis as an audience for the commemoration is in decline, a process that reflects a broader tendency of Arab citizens to withdraw from the common Israeli public sphere. Still, in 2014, for the first time, an Israeli president (Reuven Rivlin) took part in a memorial ceremony for the victims of the massacre in Kafr Qasim, which gained much attention from the media.42 Similarly, it is remarkable that the relative power of the political forces that are the most vocal and explicit in their demand to abandon this sphere is still limited.43 •

•

•

One particular aspect of the commemoration of the four events has not been discussed in detail yet: the establishment of memorial monuments. Unlike the political calendar that emerged gradually from the late 1950s with two of its anchors already well established by the early 1980s, memorial monuments for martyrs first appeared only in the mid-1970s and have become widespread only in the twenty-first century. The reasons for this delay and its sociological and political meanings are discussed in the next two chapters.

4

MEMORIALS FOR MARTYRS, I (1976–1983) “Um Hassan said that she passed there on her way to al-Kweikat and saw among the village’s ruins a burned-out bus and a destroyed armored car. The Israelis built a monument for their dead on the site. ‘And we, what shall we build there?’ I asked her. ‘What shall we build?’ she wondered. ‘I mean, after the liberation,’ I said. She looked at me with half-closed eyes as if she didn’t fully understand me, and then she laughed.” Elias Khuri, Bab Al-Shams

although since the 1930s forces within Palestinian society have been calling for the establishment of memorial monuments for martyrs, we have no evidence that such a monument was built under British rule. Palestinians in Israel first built a memorial for their martyrs only in 1976, in memory of the victims of the Kafr Qasim massacre. What could explain this delay? When the editors of Filastin and al-Difa‘ suggested building a monument for the unknown martyr in 1936, they identified secular martyrological monuments for national warriors with “the West.” They adopted a common view that war memorials are a “visual sign of modernity”1 and that Palestinian modernity should be based on a Western model. Their use of this argument might imply that, compared with other forms of commemoration, martyrological monuments were less deep-rooted in the local cultural legacy. However, the cultural argument supplies only a marginal explanation because even if we consider the martyr monument as foreign, the indigenization of foreign cultural forms was already prevalent in Mandatory Palestine. During the first half of the twentieth century, Palestinians adopted various ideologies and institutions of European origin, from the nation-state to communism, as well as diverse cultural forms including clothing and leisure habits. Furthermore, prominent Palestinian intellectuals, such as Filastin’s editor ‘Isa al-‘Isa and the historian ‘Arif al-‘Arif held senior positions in the short-lived Syrian kingdom under Faysal that led an intensive spatial commemoration of secular national martyrs from 1919 to 1920.2 These intellectuals were surely aware of this commemoration if not active contributors to its production. Furthermore, in 1933 a monument was established in Haifa to commemorate King Faysal al-Hashimi who had died in Switzerland 87

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and whose body passed through Haifa on its way back to Iraq. ­Although Faysal was not considered a national martyr, his monument illustrates that this kind of commemoration was already practiced by Palestinians, not only discussed among intellectuals. The antagonism of the British and later Israeli authorities was probably the major reason that different plans to build Palestinian national monuments did not materialize. Building monuments that commemorate national martyrs is a major practice of constructing national consciousness in the modern era.3 These monuments enable the nation-state to construct space as a national landscape and to crystallize national identification for its citizens by placing the hegemonic national narrative in public space,4 creating a concrete representation of its sovereignty, providing validity and legitimacy to a political claim for a territory, and mobilizing future sacrifice for the nation. Not coincidently, following the end of a colonial rule, former colonies were quick to remove, alter, or relocate memorial monuments built by the colonizers.5 Thus, a main obstacle for erecting memorial monuments by a national minority is the potential interpretation of these monuments by various social actors as part of the national set of symbols, like the national flag. Since a nationalist discourse assumes that there is room for only one national sovereign, and since commemoration of national martyrs is so central in legitimizing national ideologies, by building monuments for their victims of the conflict, Palestinians are interpreted as defining a certain territory as Palestinian national territory and, by that, questioning the legitimacy of Israeli sovereignty. A noticeable example (although somewhat unique) of the concerns of Jewish Israelis regarding memorial monuments could be found in the saga of the improvised memorials built in East Jerusalem shortly before the first anniversary of the 1967 occupation to commemorate Arab combatants who were killed in the battle. Since East Jerusalem was officially annexed to Israel after the 1967 war, it was not subjected to military rule like the rest of the West Bank, and therefore the method of Israeli control had to be compatible, at least in appearance, with the rule of civil law. On the other hand, unlike Palestinian citizens of Israel, Jerusalemite Palestinians did not live under military law for two decades and did not internalize the system of bans and restrictions on politicizing public space. The memorial monuments emerged from this crack in the control system. The anniversary memorial processions that took place in the city in June 1968 marched toward these new monuments and participants put flowers on them.6 The city hall of Jerusalem objected to the existence of the improvised

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memorials but in the negotiations between the waqf administration and the city hall, it was agreed that the improvised memorials would be removed and in their place three permanent memorials would be authorized. However, the agreement was criticized in Hebrew press editorials, in Knesset discussions, and in the government. According to a public opinion poll, two-thirds of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem opposed the Arab memorials. Following this public turmoil, Israeli authorities withdrew their consent and agreed to leave in place only a single memorial whose establishment had already begun.7 In contrast, the first wave of memorial monuments inside Israel, which began to emerge following Land Day, appeared inside Arab localities, far away from the eyes of most Jewish Israelis, and did not cause any public uproar. Still, the Israeli authorities watched this process closely. The removal of the military government in 1966 had relatively and gradually liberalized the means of protest and commemoration available to Palestinians in Israel, but it took years until this relative liberalization was internalized by both the functionaries in the state apparatus, as well as by Arab citizens. The Land Day events and the emergence of new, local martyr-heroes broke a mental barrier and enabled a growing boldness in appropriating space for national memory. One expression of this growing collective self-confidence was the establishment of six monuments for martyrs within seven years (1976–1983). In all these cases both the content and the process of construction embodied the cautious nature of commemoration at the time. The Appendix presents a comprehensive list of the monuments for martyrs that are discussed in this chapter and in the following chapter. In this first wave of monuments this caution was expressed by locating monuments in cemeteries rather than in central visible locations, by inscribing a sanitized text on the monument that did not identify a perpetrator, by including Jewish citizens as creators or commemorated subjects, by avoiding explicit contextualization of the commemoration in the broader Palestinian national narrative, and by emphasizing loyalties that were considered less political such as local, religious, and communal identities. THE FIRST MONUMENT IN KAFR QASIM: SANITIZED LANGUAGE

Although some improvised signs at the site of the Kafr Qasim massacre existed after the massacre took place, the first initiatives by local activists to build a permanent memorial in the 1960s failed when the military government, with the assistance of its local agents, prevented the allocation of a land tract for a monument.8 The local commemoration committee that was established in

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Kafr Qasim in preparation for the tenth anniversary publicly demanded that the local council of the village establish a memorial monument.9 This demand was raised repeatedly in the following years,10 but in vain. Fear of the authorities probably played an important role in toning down spatial expressions of commemoration. After his visit to Kafr Qasim in summer 1969, Emile Habibi reported that the graves were not in good shape. “When we asked the people: ‘Why don’t you build them?’” wrote Habibi, “They said that the families of the victims were concerned that they might face the anger of the authorities if they do so.”11 The reluctance of the local council to adopt spatial commemoration is related to the use of the local council as a tool by the military rule in its attempts to depoliticize the ceremonies. Therefore, in the first years after the massacre, the center of gravity of the politicized commemoration, led by the Communist Party, had been outside Kafr Qasim. During the 1970s, however, the formal removal of military rule, the emergence of Arab local councils as relatively ­autonomous actors, as well as personal changes in the local council brought the council to adopt a more assertive line and to take the lead in commemorating the massacre as a political event.12 The acceptance of the repeated demands of the Commemoration Committee to establish a memorial monument was part of this process. Al-Ittihad reported that donations for building the monument came from throughout the country. The monument, located at the same spot where most of the victims were executed, was unveiled during the twentieth anniversary of the massacre in 1976. According to the then-Kafr Qasim mayor, ‘Abdallah Sarsur, Israeli authorities placed innumerable obstacles to prevent the construction of the monument and used their agents in Kafr Qasim to put pressure on him.13 Other sources, however, depict a slightly different story. The protocols of the local council meeting from October 1976 (two days before the unveiling ceremony), refers to the monument and states that: “the work that was done will be supported by the Prime Minister’s Office.”14 In other words, there was probably a tacit agreement between the local council and the Advisor to the Prime Minister for Arab Affairs (hereafter—Arab Affairs Advisor) who gave his consent and even supported the cautious and dull text that was inscribed on the tablet, in which the event is described merely as a “painful tragedy” without mentioning who was responsible for it. Throughout the meeting protocol, the expression “painful tragedy” substituted the word “massacre,” which was completely absent from the discussion. The uniformity and compatibility of the vocabulary used in the meeting and on the monument suggests that the local

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council avoided deviating from a text pre-approved by the Arab Affairs ­Advisor. Sanitized language is a form of cultural violence,15 but here this language not only is used against the victims, but they are forced to adopt it in their own voice. This adoption is evidence that the power dynamics and mechanism of control used under Israeli military rule remained intact years after its formal end. In contrast, the plaques and monuments erected in the 1990s are much more explicit in pointing fingers. For example, a memorial plaque installed on the wall of a mosque in that later period states that the victims “were murdered by the IDF in cold blood.” Regardless of the dull wording, the marble plaque immediately gained the social recognition of a memorial monument. Since then it has served as a starting point for the annual memorial processions, and in the first years following its establishment, visitors in organized tours to the village used to stop near the monument for a moment of silence. THE LAND DAY MONUMENT: A JOINT ARAB-JEWISH PROJECT

Two monuments were built following Land Day. One of them, and the more famous of the two, is dedicated to all six martyrs and located in Sakhnin.16 Three months after the unveiling of this monument in 1978, the journalist Ibrahim Malik suggested that married couples should adopt a custom common in the Soviet Union and Poland: to visit memorials for national martyrs before their wedding ceremony.17 This custom, argued Malik, is compatible with the main text inscribed on the monument: “They died as martyrs (istashhadu) for us to live . . . thus, they are alive.” There is no evidence that anyone adopted Malik’s suggestion, but the idea itself reflects the enthusiastic welcoming of the monument, at least among intellectuals. Another monument, much less famous, was established in Taybeh to commemorate Rafat al-Zuhayri from the refugee camp Nur al-Shams, killed in Taybeh during Land Day. Although in the story of the Land Day monument in Sakhnin we can find a higher level of daring than in the case of the Kafr Qasim monument, it is still a cautious project. Shortly after Land Day, the Land Committee and the local committees of commemoration established in Sakhnin and ‘Arabeh decided to create a memorial monument. They financed it from donations and by selling copies of a poster designed by a Palestinian painter from Ramallah, ­Suleiman Mansur, depicting the six martyrs.18 The poster itself is one example of the fact that unlike Kafr Qasim, the Land Day myth was immediately adopted by Palestinians outside Israel.

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The artist chosen for this task was ‘Abed ‘Abdi, a thirty-four-year-old Palestinian from Haifa who had returned recently from art studies in East Germany and worked as an illustrator for al-Ittihad. ‘Abdi asked his friend, townsman, and member of the same party, the Jewish Israeli sculptor Gershon Knispel, to join him in co-creating the monument. ‘Abdi and Knispel knew each other long before their joint project, they shared a similar world view, and ‘Abdi had much appreciation for Knispel’s artistic work and technical skills. Knispel was already known for his commemorative memorial for fallen IDF soldiers, with a pacifist message. ‘Abdi ascribed also a political declarative importance to establishing a memorial monument together with a Jewish Israeli artist. Without underestimating the importance of these considerations, ‘Abdi was concerned also that he might confront the state’s authorities. “I did not receive any threats, but I felt threatened. It was in the air,”19 he told me. These concerns were not baseless. For example, while the monument was under construction, Mayor Jamal Tarabiyeh of Sakhnin was interrogated by the police and was accused of “illegal construction.”20 Therefore, the inclusion of Knispel, the Israeli Jew, had the potential of conveying a non-nationalist message and reducing the risk of confrontation. The participation of a creator of Zionist memorial monuments, who had served in the Israeli army in 1948, in a project that commemorates the most important heroic myth in the history of the Palestinian citizens of Israel might be considered ironic. This participation, however, embodies in microcosm the complicated status of the Palestinians in Israel, as well as the hesitant and cautious path they had to choose in the field of political commemoration. The need to be cautious is reflected as well in the text inscribed on the monument that avoids any explicit nationalist tone. The bilingual text inscribed on the back wall of the monument calls for co-existence and rapprochement between the two peoples. This is a sharp contrast to the combatant slogans that accompanied the Land Day victims’ funerals, such as “In blood and spirit we will redeem you, Galilee,”21 and the explicit contextualization of Land Day in the Palestinian national struggle in al-Ittihad’s rhetoric at the time.22 At the same time, the text on the monument is more than a simple cautious tactic, and must be considered as well a genuine expression of its creators’ worldview. It reflects also the aspiration of the Palestinian communist activists to emphasize both Palestinian and Israeli affiliations. In its pacifying and universalistic message, the monument strikingly resembles the monument built in 1974 to commemorate Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland.23 In both

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cases the commemorating agents (communists in Israel, Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association in Northern Ireland) articulated the grievance of a trapped minority in universalistic and non-violent vocabulary. At the same time, and given the stricter surveillance and the shadow of Israeli military rule, Palestinians in Israel had to be much more careful than Irish nationalists, and therefore, unlike the Derry monument, the Land Day monument avoids pointing fingers at state authorities. The monument’s location was also prudently chosen. Originally, its creators wanted to locate it at the western entrance of ‘Arabeh, east of Sakhnin. However, they faced the objection of the private owner of the land at the desired location. In addition, there was a concern that the proximity to the main road would enable the Israeli authorities to use the pretext of public safety for removing the monument. After consultation with the Land Committee, it was decided to locate the monument in the Muslim cemetery in Sakhnin. This decision was motivated by the hope that the government would refrain from sending demolition and security teams into the cemetery.24 SABRA AND SHATILA: COMMEMORATING A JEWISH CITIZEN

In June 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon in an attempt to uproot the PLO infrastructure in the country and to establish an Israeli-friendly puppet regime led by Christian Maronite forces.25 In September the Lebanese Phalanges, sent by Israel to the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut to capture Palestinian fighters, massacred at least 800 Palestinians and Lebanese citizens. The event triggered the establishment of two additional monuments. In Kafr Kana in the Galilee, the local branch of the Sons of the Village built a memorial in the old Muslim cemetery. One of the activists involved in this initiative was interrogated by the police and accused of “illegal construction.”26 Remarkably, this monument is almost unknown among the residents of Kafr Kana today. In addition, in the (then) unrecognized Bedouin village of Laqiyya in the south of the country, a local NGO established a modest monument in memory of the victims. As a cautionary measure, another monument was built nearby to commemorate Emile Grunzweig, a Jewish Israeli peace activist who was killed by a grenade thrown at an anti-war protest in Jerusalem in 1983. ­Nabhan al-Sani‘, a young activist in Laqiyya, supported the establishment of this second monument. According to al-Sani‘, when members of the NGO board questioned the necessity of this monument, he answered: “The Emile Grunzweig monument will protect our monument.”27 Unlike in Sakhnin, this time a

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J­ewish citizen was included as an object of commemoration, rather than as a co-­creator of the monument, but in both cases this inclusion was at least partially driven by the need to protect Palestinian monuments. ‘AYLABUN: LOCAL AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY

Although thousands of Palestinians were killed during the 1948 war,28 there is no evidence that Palestinians in Israel established monuments to commemorate them before 1983. It is possible that compared with the relative ephemerality of the printed medium, establishing commemorative monuments would have served as a physical acknowledgement of the loss of Palestine, akin to building a grave for a missing person whose family is still waiting for her/his return. In the words of James Young, “It is as if once we assign monumental form to memory, we have to some degree divested ourselves of the obligation to remember.”29 Death, therefore, became a relatively marginal motif in the Palestinian commemoration of the Nakba. The public commemoration crystallized mainly around the expulsion, loss of lands and homes, the dignity of the owners who suddenly became refugees or a subordinated minority, and the determination to return. It is not a coincidence, therefore, that the first monument commemorating 1948 martyrs was establishment by a community in which the inclusion of its particular tragedy in the Palestinian collective narrative is questioned. This first monument also demonstrates that, at this point, denationalization and de-Palestinization of the Nakba’s memories facilitated their representation in a public space. On 30 October, 1948 the IDF conquered the 500-person Christian village of ‘Aylabun in the eastern Galilee. After occupying the village the soldiers executed fourteen men and expelled the other residents to Lebanon. In the days following the massacre, the IDF fought against the Mawasi Bedouin tribe (the largest tribe in the Galilee before 1948) who were herding sheep on neighboring land. On 2 November they captured a group of Mawasi men, collected their arms, and later executed fourteen of them.30 Most of the tribe was chased across the border into Syria.31 At that point, the people of ‘Aylabun took advantage of their connections with European clergy to mobilize international pressure on Israel. In a rare move, the Israeli government approved the return of the villagers to their homes. Later, in the 1950s, several Bedouin families, remnants of the Mawasi tribe who remained in Israel, were settled in ‘Aylabun as part of a government policy to sedentarize the Bedouin population. As a result, ‘Aylabun became a

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mixed Christian-Bedouin village (according to the 2008 census, 70 percent of the population was Christian). The Christian residents of ‘Aylabun conducted annual memorial ceremonies for their victims beginning with the first anniversary of the massacre.32 U ­ nlike the rallies commemorating the Kafr Qasim massacre that became national political demonstrations, the memorial ceremonies in ‘Aylabun maintained a local, familial, and religious character for decades. Until the 1990s no political speeches were delivered at these ceremonies.33 In view of that fact, the commemoration referred only to the Christian dead and excluded the Bedouins. The memorial monument established on the external wall of the village cemetery reflects this spirit. This monument was created by a young artist from the village, Naif Sam‘an, trained at the Jewish-Arab club of Beit ha-Gefen in Haifa. According to Sam‘an, at Beit ha-Gefen he had assisted the Jewish artist Shalom Dorner in creating a memorial monument for Holocaust victims, and from that point on he was determined to create a similar monument for the victims in ‘Aylabun. In 1983 he succeeded in creating the monument, financed with the help of a local friend.34 Sam‘an created a metal embossment depicting a mother holding her dying son, blood pouring from his gunshot wounds, especially from his head and chest. This image powerfully echoes the famous Pieta icon, one of the most familiar images in Catholic iconography, in which Mary holds Jesus after he was taken down from the cross. While the crucifixion metaphor is not rare in Palestinian art, such an explicit spatial reference of it cannot be found in any of the other Palestinian memorial monuments. The names of the Christian victims are inscribed on a marble tablet with the title: “‘Aylabun’s victims, 30/10/1948.” The heroic discourse, which could already be detected on the Land Day monument, and the purpose of death (“they gave their lives so we could live” as stated on the Land Day monument) are completely absent. True, the combination of gunshot wounds and the year 1948 is sufficient for providing the national context for every Palestinian observer, even without explicit statements. Still, the fact that the text neither contextualizes the massacre among other events in Palestinian history, nor does it invoke the word “Nakba” is significant. In addition, even though the victims were called “martyrs” (shuhada’ ) as early as 1949 (in the invitation to a memorial ceremony written by the village priest), Sam‘an preferred the use of the term “victims” and with that further blurred the national context of the monument.

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Hence, the local dimension of collective memory in ‘Aylabun was emphasized against Palestinian national identity and not complementary to it. To a certain extent the Christian identity of the victims and their community played a similar role: after all, it was only by making their case unique, unrelated to the fate of other Palestinians that the people of ‘Aylabun were able to return to their homes in 1949. NATIONAL, LOCAL, AND COMMUNAL IDENTITIES

The list of martyrs on the Land Day monument is compatible with the aim of those who aspired to construct the event as a breaker of internal ­boundaries— it includes both Muslims and Christians, both men and women, as well as individuals from different localities and regions. From a Palestinian national perspective, the ‘Aylabun monument that excludes the Bedouins is a step backward. Indeed, the rhetorical commitment to national unity and cross-sectarian solidarity has not been enough to overcome the social reality that has encouraged various dimensions of divisions. Highlighting non-national identities in order to depoliticize self-­presentation in front of the state authority or Jewish citizens is a form of a cautious measure that would remain noticeable even later, beyond the first phase of memorial monuments. For this reason it is important to examine it closer. Local Identity as a Cautious Measure

By depoliticizing daily interactions through emphasis on identities considered in Israel as apolitical, Arab citizens can avoid the potential threats attached to either Israeli identity (being considered as subversive by Palestinian nationalists) or Palestinian identity (being considered as the enemy within by Jewish Israelis). These “non-political” belongings either can be communal-religious identities,35 communal-cultural identities,36 local identities,37 or even loyalty to a soccer team.38 The emphasis on localism and communalism, therefore, has specific instrumental aspects. Since building memorial monuments is related to struggles over public space, the development of local identity (which is based on spatial distinctions) is especially relevant for our discussion. Although local communities played an overriding role in defining Palestinian identity even before 1948,39 the new political circumstances in which the Palestinians in Israel were trapped has strengthened the status of local identity. Under the watchful eyes of military governors, Arabs in Israel faced difficulties in traveling from one town to another as well as in organizing country-wide

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supra-local frameworks.40 Even after military rule was removed in 1966, because of their limited access to the state’s political center, local politics became the main sphere where Arab public leaders could exert power.41 Most important however, is the fact that unlike Jewish citizens who control the common space and landscape, Palestinians have no Arab common space outside of the Arab localities. Furthermore, Palestinians in Israel suffer from a lack of urban centers that are collectively recognized as a symbolic or unifying cultural center. Jerusalem as a religious-cultural center is outside their control, and the modern pre-1948 Palestinian cultural centers, Haifa and Jaffa, were destroyed in the 1948 war and are now under Israeli control and Jewish hegemony. In struggles over spatial commemoration in these mixed towns, Arab residents can protest but usually cannot carve their collective narrative in the shared space.42 In the sense of a cultural, political, and economic center, a Palestinian urban national center does not exist, and even Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel, is far from qualifying since it does not have central institutions like a university, national library, national book publishers, and so on.43 Therefore, almost every cultural production, and certainly those that shape space, necessarily acquires a clear local character. Sometimes this local character coincides with national identification, but in other cases, like in the ‘Aylabun monument, localism overshadows national connotations. Regarding martyrological commemoration, local identity is strategically mobilized in two different ways: as part of the national narrative or against it. First, most studies of local identity and commemoration tend to emphasize the co-production and mutual enhancement of local and national identities in commemorative practice.44 In the Palestinian nationalist sphere, local martyrs enable residents of a certain village or town to present themselves as possessing a higher rank in the imagined hierarchy of Palestinian national importance. Local pride in the Land Day martyrs from their own localities is an example of that. In addition, against the collapse of the urban centers and a large number of Palestinian villages in 1948, local narratives of war developed among the villages that survived and gave meaning to the survival. Accordingly, people in Kafr Qasim, Sakhnin, and other places formulated local myths of heroism that ascribed their non-expulsion to their unique steadfastness,45 not necessarily to Palestinian prowess or solidarity.46 The expression of this pattern in commemorative practices is the interweaving of local martyrology with the national narrative and presenting the contribution of the local martyr to national

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s­ uccess (e.g., both Sakhnin and Kafr Qasim are named in certain contexts— Balad al-Shuhada—the Martyrs’ Village, referring respectively to Land Day and the massacre in Kafr Qasim in 1956).47 Indeed, some survey analyses found positive correlation between local identification and Palestinian national identity among the Arab citizens of Israel.48 Local martyrology, however, is sometimes strategically mobilized to distance oneself from Palestinian national identity since the latter is perceived by many as potentially detrimental to their status as Israeli citizens. Hence, interactions with Jews tend to be accompanied by emphasizing institutions with a clear local identity. Therefore, in the same way that the tremendous popularity of local Arab soccer teams and the local-patriotic rites that evolved around them stem in part from their potential to provide a warlike, masculine, and competitive pride that does not contradict “Israeliness,” commemorating the dead in a local context rather than a national one might reduce the potential for a conflict with Jewish Israelis. The local character of the commemoration in ‘Aylabun is a case in point. Religious and Sectarian Identity as a Cautious Measure

The frequent emphasis of religious identities has a similar strategic purpose. The Palestinians in Israel belong to different religious communities—about 84 percent are Sunni Muslim, 8 percent are Druze, and 8 percent are Christians. ­Although these distinctions and the conflicts related to them are older than the State of Israel, they have been sustained and nurtured by governmental authorities striving to prevent the emergence of a unified national consciousness.49 Christian Palestinians, who once stood at the forefront of the Palestinian national struggle, had to face the accelerated Islamization of this struggle in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,50 the emergence and salience of the ­Islamic Movement inside Israel since the 1970s, which undermined Christian self-­confidence,51 and more specifically, the growing role of the Islamic Movement in shaping Palestinian national commemoration in Israel.52 Accordingly, Muhammad Amara and Izhak Schnell found that Christian Arabs in Israel are much more likely to see the term “Palestinian” as irrelevant to their identity repertoire than Muslims (28 percent and 11 percent respectively).53 On the other hand Christian Palestinians seem to be more active in national commemoration: Christians are over-represented in Nakba commemorative activities54; Christian activists were dominant among the founders of the Committee of the Uprooted; and institutions affiliated with the Christian Orthodox community,

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such as the Orthodox College in Haifa and the Orthodox Events Center in Nazareth, have made some pioneering contributions in bequeathing the memories of the Nakba to the younger generation (see chapters 8 and 9). The marginalization of Christians in the Palestinian sphere seems to push them in different directions. For some it might be an incentive to politicize their Palestinian identity, whereas for others, this marginalization meets their frequent need to deemphasize their Palestinian identity as citizens of Israel, and therefore their Christian identity is used to depoliticize social encounters.55 This phenomenon is evident in the following finding: in the open-ended self-description in my 2008 survey (for details, see the Introduction), Christian interviewees who used their religious affiliation to describe their identity were far less likely to choose the Nakba than other Christians as one of the most important events in the history of the country.56 This does not mean that Christian Palestinians ascribe less importance to the Nakba, since overall Christians in this survey were the religious group that mentioned the Nakba more than any other. What it does mean is that those who tend to highlight their Christian identity tend also to stay a safe distance from the Nakba (Druze identity, which plays a similar role but in a much more extreme way, is discussed in the next chapter). This finding is compatible with the explicitly Christian monument in ‘Aylabun that both excludes non-Christians and avoids explicit reference to the Nakba. Finally, about one-fifth of the Arab Muslims in Israel are Bedouins. Unlike most Muslim Arabs, Bedouin men are allowed to volunteer for military service in the IDF (one of the rare channels of employment for Israel’s Bedouins, the country’s least-educated Arab population) and came to be viewed within Jewish Israeli society as a separate, non-Arab minority group loyal to the state,57 or at least as “‘good Arabs.” Furthermore, past surveys have shown that Bedouins were more ready than other Arabs to accept their “separate but equal” status in the Jewish state.58 My own 2008 study found that the likelihood of Bedouins to self-identify as Israelis was more than twice that of other Palestinians in Israel.59 There is, however, significant difference between those Bedouins who live in the south of the country (about two-thirds) and those who live in the north. It seems that the “de-Arabization project” among the southern Bedouins failed,60 while the Bedouins in the north show a greater readiness to accept the ­Jewish-Zionist character of the state and a weaker Palestinian ­identification.61 The southern Bedouins also face a more aggressive policy of the state on land issues, and therefore they have become extremely over-represented in the

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c­ ommemoration of Land Day. In a 2010 survey, 63.5 percent of Bedouin reported participation in at least one Land Day event, compared with 37.2 percent in the entire sample; the northern Bedouins were extremely underrepresented (8 percent).62 Accordingly, the northern Bedouins provide most of the IDF Bedouin conscripts, and military service is common among ‘Aylabun’s Bedouin residents. In other words, their distance from the mainstream Palestinian narrative is even more pronounced than that of their Christian neighbors. Their absence from the 1983 monument in ‘Aylabun is not only a reflection of their exclusion by their Christian neighbors, but also an expression of the tendency to keep their 1948 memories out of the all-Palestinian narrative. The Bedouin inhabitants in ‘Aylabun have commemorated their victims separately. Immediately after their deaths, the bodies were buried in a cave adjacent to the place where they were killed. In the 1950s, the Israeli National Water Project was dug through the cave, and the Mawassi people took the bones to another cave. During the 1980s, presumably influenced by the monument built for the Christian victims, the bones were moved to a common grave in the small Muslim cemetery in ‘Aylabun. A tombstone was erected that records only the date of the deaths. The tomb of an IDF soldier from the Mawassi tribe, located several feet from this grave, is a sharp reminder of the severance of the northern Bedouins from the Palestinian national narrative. •

•

•

The first wave of monuments reflects both the growing self-confidence following Land Day, as well as the caution shaped by governmental surveillance that did not disappear with the formal removal of the military government. This caution is expressed in diverse ways, including the highlighting of “apolitical” affiliations, such as local and religious identities, which contradicts the tendency to shape the commemoration as a display of Palestinian national solidarity. As the next chapter illustrates, only the events of October 2000 triggered a surge of assertive monuments in Arab localities, but commemorating the massacres and battles of 1948 would still remain a sensitive issue that many Palestinian citizens would prefer to avoid.

5

MEMORIALS FOR MARTYRS, II (1998–2013)

in march 1998, the FUC was looking for ways to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Nakba. The FUC nominated a Nakba and Steadfastness Committee, chaired by the writer Muhammad ‘Ali Taha. Among the various initiatives of the committee, one garnered particular attention in the Arabic media, which reported on it in front-page headlines: the call to Arab municipalities to establish memorial monuments for the Palestinian martyrs of 1948.1 The decision to commemorate the Nakba provoked implicit and explicit threats from the Israeli government. The then-Minister for Arab Affairs Moshe Katzav (elected as Israel’s president two years later), described the FUC’s decision to commemorate the Nakba as “dangerous and might damage Jewish-Arab coexistence.”2 The Minister of Interior Eli Yishai threatened to cut the governmental funding of local authorities that financed the commemoration of the Nakba.3 A televised debate about the proposed Nakba commemoration—between Taha and a Likud MK, the late Gid‘on ‘Ezra (a former chief deputy of the General ­Security Service)—deteriorated into name-calling and mutual shoving.4 At the same time, Taha’s committee had no independent resources, no authority to implement its plans, and was wholly dependent on the cooperation of Arab local municipalities.5 In fact, most of the Arab municipalities, which were expected to carry out the initiative, avoided giving high priority to the monument project or investing money from their scarce resources. There was no public pressure on them to implement the committee’s decisions, nor was there any public enthusiasm to contribute money, materials, or labor. Given these unfavorable starting conditions, Taha’s expectation that at least fifteen local authorities would positively respond to his request (in particular 101

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those villages and towns where a battle or massacre had taken place)6 were not met during the first thirty months after the decision. It was only after the events of October 2000 that memorials mushroomed in many Palestinian towns and villages in Israel. These later memorial monuments commemorate Palestinian martyrs from various periods since 1936. Broadly, the story of the establishment, non-establishment, or destruction of these memorial monuments epitomizes many of the dilemmas and contradictions inherent in the production of collective memory by Palestinian citizens of Israel. Palestinian memorial monuments in Israel have been located at the junctures of several societal tensions: first, between the Palestinian citizen and the state; second, between members of intellectual and political elites whose social and occupational status make them more self-confident and ready to defy the state, on the one hand, and larger circles of insecure, suspicious, and cautious publics who prefer to keep “risky” memories private, on the other; and third, between different religious and ethnic groups within Palestinian society. THE CROSS-CONFESSIONAL MONUMENT IN ‘AYLABUN

The fact that an established commemorative tradition for the 1948 massacre already existed in ‘Aylabun (see previous chapter) paved the way for the local council to accept the FUC’s call to build a memorial monument to the Nakba victims, unlike most other localities However, from a Palestinian national perspective, the 1983 memorial had a noticeable flaw—the exclusion of the Bedouin residents of ‘Aylabun. Therefore, in 1998 the mayor of ‘Aylabun, Dr. Hanna Sweid (a member of the DFPE), considered a new inclusive monument an opportunity to strengthen Palestinian national consciousness in ‘Aylabun, as well as to tighten the ties between the Christian and Bedouin segments of the village. Presumably, the upcoming local elections and the traditional role of Bedouin votes as the deciding factor was an additional drive for his support of the monument. The monument was unveiled on 30 October 1998 in a ceremony commemorating the massacre’s fiftieth anniversary, which included a speech by Mayor Sweid, in which he stated: “In this project, we share the fiftieth memorial day of the Nakba with our Palestinian people, and by building the monument we confirmed the unity of ‘Aylabun.”7 The monument was created by reshaping a brick wall near an old church where IDF soldiers had executed some of the victims. Copper tablets bearing the victims’ names, Christians and Bedouins alike, were installed on the wall. A few spotlights under the wall were supposed to illuminate it at night.

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It is unclear, however, how many of the Bedouin residents shared the mayor’s view regarding the need to contextualize the commemoration in the Palestinian national narrative. According to Elias Srur who took part in the preparations for establishing the monument, even though the families of the Bedouin victims cooperated with the municipality in building the memorial monument, only a handful of the Bedouin residents showed significant interest in it.8 In any event, the monument had a short existence. The copper tablets with the martyrs’ names gradually disappeared from the wall. It might have been simply a case of metal theft, which had become common in the country during that same year. It is noteworthy, however, that the nearby metal cross on the roof of the church remained untouched. In other words, the martyrs’ names did not gain enough respect to protect them. As a result, less than five years after the unveiling, the ‘Aylabun Nakba memorial monument looked just like another wall. Above it the new ground floor of a private Christian-owned home was built. In a visit to the town in December 2006, I asked the owner of this home about the monument that once stood there. His blatant answer was another example of the way many residents of ‘Aylabun chose to present themselves before a Jewish audience: “We are Christians here. They put here the names of ­Bedouins. Nobody wanted it, so some children came and removed it. We don’t want Bedouins here. Fuck them! Next thing they will start to pray here and will ask to build a mosque here.” I asked him if he knew who the people commemorated by the memorial wall were. “Of course I know,” he answered. “My father-in-law died here. But it was a long time ago.” The Bedouin residents with whom I discussed the issue were unaware that the monument had been virtually effaced, since they rarely visited that area of the village. In any case, they did not seem to care. A decade after its establishment, the former mayor Sweid presented his own perspective on the destruction of the monument: It is no secret that among some circles in the village there was an attempt to play down—not to hide but to play down—this issue [ . . . ] This is a political concern—maybe the authorities would take revenge. People have personally experienced punishment in the form of preventing employment or their daily needs. So people were just worried. I’d say that it even has lasted to current days. People do not want to make a national story out of it. They are satisfied with it being a local story, that this is a tragedy that occurred here in the village. Part of the population thinks that it is inappropriate and not worthwhile to weave it

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together with the Nakba in general. We have this mindset among segments of the public here in ‘Aylabun. There is a gap even between the very cautious way I handled this matter and the sentiments of parts of the public here in ‘Aylabun.9

The case of ‘Aylabun sharply illustrates the gap between a political leadership that strives to promote a Palestinian nationalist discourse and the wider social circles that are not always enthusiastic about it. The mayor intended to nurture a cross-communal local pride in ‘Aylabun, and this localism was supposed to be interwoven with the Palestinian national narrative. However, this idea was incompatible with the aspirations of significant segments of the Christian population, and local identification can replace Palestinian national identity rather than enhance it. In fact, unlike the destroyed joint monument of 1998, the manifestly Christian monument from 1983 is still in good shape. It has a clear local and religious character, and it is not oriented toward the construction of a unified Palestinian identity common to Christians and Bedouins. Every year the people of ‘Aylabun commemorate the massacre near the 1983 monument. On their way to the monument, they pass by the wall that once was a monument. SHEFA‘AMR: THE BATTLE OVER THE MONUMENT

The first Arab municipality to decide on the establishment of a Nakba memorial monument was that of the mixed Muslim-Christian-Druze town of Shefa‘amr. On April 1, 1998, the municipal council decided unanimously to build a monument in the traffic circle near the municipality to commemorate Shefa‘amr’s victims of the 1948 war.10 The year 1998 was also a municipal election year. The town mayor, Ibrahim Nimr Husayn (Abu Hatem), had ruled since 1969 and had served as the chair of the FUC since its establishment in 1982. Since 1983, Abu Hatem had led a coalition that comprised all three religious communities but faced growing dissatisfaction from the Christians,11 who felt excluded from most positions of power.12 Abu Hatem assumed (mistakenly, as it turned out) that a monument might improve his undermined local political status.13 The municipality and the Nakba and Steadfastness Committee published a call to Shefa‘amr inhabitants to assist the project by collecting the names of victims from Shefa‘amr and the neighboring villages Hawsha and Khirbat al-Kasair, which were destroyed by Israeli forces in 1948.14 In July 1998 a monument was erected, consisting of a vertical marble tablet with copper embossments of people wearing traditional Palestinian peasant clothing. A second marble tablet angled at the base of the main tablet bore

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the victims’ names. However, the monument was never officially unveiled. In the elections, Shefa‘amr’s residents, fed up with Abu Hatem’s three-decadelong authoritarian rule, rejected him, and elected by default the other main candidate, his son-in-law ‘Orsan Yasin. Although the ruling right-wing Zionist Likud party unofficially supported Yasin, his election did not reflect an ideological shift but rather, communal and familial struggles and ­interests. ­Although a Muslim like Abu Hatem, Yasin enjoyed widespread support from Shefa‘amr’s Christians, who found in him a suitable means for ousting his father-in-law.15 After Yasin’s election, his pro-Zionist line was emphasized. It became clear that Yasin represented the view that to be considered “good citizens,” Arabs in Israel should refrain from identifying themselves as Palestinians and should distance themselves from the Palestinian national narrative. Although this perception is not rare among Arabs in Israel, Yasin’s formulation was extreme. His aspirations to gain greater resources from the government for his city were articulated in a cynical strategy that included hanging Israeli flags near the municipality far beyond what is required by law, making pro-Zionist declarations in the media,16 and actively opposing strikes organized by the FUC. Yasin’s main move in this context was the reshaping of the Nakba monument in such a way that its commemorative national aspects disappeared. Under the (unnecessary) protection of the Israeli police, the main marble tablet was plastered over and decorated with embossments of flowers, and a turretlike structure was attached to it. The small square around the monument was turned into a pool with fountains in such a way that the victims’ names were submerged under water. The voices of protest by the monument’s supporters, mainly members of the DFPE and the NDA, were ineffective. Yasin’s deputy, Ahmad Khatib, sent him a letter of protest asking to convene the municipal council for an emergency meeting.17 Ahmad Hamdi, a city council member representing the DFPE, sent a letter to Yasin in which he warned that “Shefa‘amris would punish those who try to assault their sacred values sanctities.”18 Yasin was not impressed by the protest; and by the following summer, the site had become an unofficial bathing pool for the town’s children. Yasin, who was previously a member of the council that unanimously approved the construction of the memorial, sarcastically explained his decision to a reporter from the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz: “What do they want? That I allow an ugly tomb in front of the municipality? I made a renovation, so everyone feels good under the water.”19 Later the water was drained because of safety consid-

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erations, and the empty pool became an improvised garbage dump. In the local election held in October 2003, Yasin’s opponents attempted to use the reshaping of the monument in their campaign, but in vain: his victory was clear cut. In my visit to Shefa‘amr in December 2006, I found the monument covered with commercial ads, signifying the complete failure of the town’s attempts to maintain it as a commemorative site. I asked some local residents what they knew about this monument. Here, like in ‘Aylabun, the answers reflected the caution of ordinary Arab citizens when they address a Jewish visitor. H., a fifty-year-old man active in the local Christian Scouts club (located approximately 100 yards from the monument), told me: “There was a monument here for those who died a long time ago—but we should move forward, go ahead. The world is changing, people progress. There is pain, but it was a long time ago—who needs that?” Later, when several scouts and guides gathered around us, I asked them if anyone knew why the monument was built. Everyone said that they had no idea, except for M., a twenty-four-year-old student at the University of Haifa, who said confidently that the monument was built to commemorate the victims of October 2000 and was later distorted. Although misinformed about the monument’s history, M. thought there was a need for this kind of monument because “every group in society should be able to express its identity.” When I insisted that nobody had seriously resisted its distortion, he replied: “People are afraid. Although we seemingly live in a democracy, people’s minds are still shaped by many years of surveillance, and they prefer not to get into trouble. For example, if someone is employed by a Jewish employer, he doesn’t want to annoy the boss, so he distances himself from political issues.” In 2008 a new mayor, Nahed Hazem, was elected. Hazem was supported by the DFPE, which had objected firmly to Yasin’s distortion of the monument. To the surprise of many, including members of his municipal coalition, Hazem not only avoided restoring the monument’s commemorative character, but he destroyed it even further. He reactivated the fountain and as part of his renovation, part of the original text was covered not only with water but also with ­cement and stone. Unlike Yasin who proudly justified his action by his objection to the political meaning of the monument, Hazem described his actions only as a “transitory phase.” In 2014, only a very close scrutiny of the monument enhanced by previous knowledge could reveal that it had been once a memorial for the Nakba victims. It seems that beyond Yasin and Hazem’s short-term political motivations, the transformation of the commemorative monument into a water playground

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or garbage dump was facilitated by its feeble status among the town’s residents. Shefa‘amr’s residents did not do all they could, to say the least, to defend the monument. It is likely that only a minority of Shefa‘amr’s residents adopted the FUC’s view regarding the need for a memorial monument. ‘Abed ‘Anbetawi, the FUC secretary and a former member of the Shefa‘amr municipality who tried to organize the opposition to the monument’s destruction, told me: “We felt alone in the battle.” In his view, this had something to do with the collective character of Shefa‘amr: “We did not have a militant opposition. The public in Shefa‘amr is different from the public in Sakhnin or Umm el-Fahem. It is not a city where the nationalist atmosphere reigns.”20 ‘Anbetawi’s complaints are clearly borne out in Ibtisam Ibrahim’s study, which ascribes the primacy of religious allegiances over Arab-Palestinian identification in Shefa‘amr to the successful “divide and rule” policies of Israeli authorities.21 The Druze Monument

The position of the Druze residents of Shefa‘amr on the commemoration of 1948 is especially interesting given the peculiar history of this community. B ­ efore 1948 the majority of Druze in Palestine were largely indifferent to the Zionist-Arab conflict and adopted a position of neutrality.22 However, the dynamics of the 1948 war forced some of them to choose sides. In late March 1948 a battalion composed of Druze volunteers affiliated with the Arab Salvation Army arrived from Syria to Palestine and set up base in Shefa‘amr.23 On 12 April the battalion was deployed in the nearby Hawsha and Khirbat al-Kasair villages and over the next four days it lost dozens of fighters in a fierce battle against the Haganah. The result was a decisive Arab defeat and the occupation of Hawsha and Khirbat al-Kasair. Following the battle, the officers of the battalion reached an agreement with the Haganah forces and returned to Syria. Some battalion officers and soldiers, however, remained in Palestine, joined the Haganah, and later recruited the first Druze soldiers to the IDF.24 The end of this battle is considered by many as a crucial landmark in the emergence of the alliance between the traditional Druze elite in the country and the Zionist establishment. A second important milestone was the fall of Shefa‘amr to Zionist hands in July, which happened in coordination with the town’s local Druze inhabitants.25 After the state was established, Israeli governmental efforts to shape a separate Druze identity disconnected from Arab and Palestinian nationalism have been largely successful.26 To be sure, opposition to the pro-Zionist orientation of the traditional

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leadership has existed, especially among secular supporters of the Communist Party, but it has remained marginal. As a result, only a small minority among the Druze in Israel define themselves as Palestinians.27 Typifying this relationship, the first memorial ever built in Israel to commemorate Arab fighters was established in 1974 in the Druze cemetery in Hurfeish to commemorate fallen Druze IDF soldiers. This monument, obviously, is not considered by anyone as a Palestinian national memorial. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, opposition to de-­Arabization began to emerge from among the ranks of religiously educated Druze. In 2003 three hundred of them established a new organization, Lajnat al-tawasul alDurziyya (the Druze Networking Committee—DNC), which aimed to improve the connection of Druze citizens in Israel with other Druze communities in the region and with the broader Arab world. In 2013 the DNC initiated the establishment of a memorial plaque to commemorate the Druze soldiers who fell in the Hawsha and al-Kasair battle near their mass grave in Shefa‘amr. The initiative alarmed elements in both the Druze spiritual leadership and the political leadership (the Druze mayors).28 To contain the commemoration and inoculate it from any anti-Zionist connotation, those leaders hurried to establish the memorial themselves. The result was a commemoration full of internal contradictions. Members of the DNC wanted the memorial to mention that the martyrs fell while “­defending Palestine,”29 but the actual text avoids contextualizing the battle as part of Arab or Palestinian national history. Under a decoration of the fivecolored star (a symbol of the Druze religion) and a Qur’anic verse referring to martyrs, the tablet reads: “The collective grave of the Druze martyrs who fell in the battle of dignity, defending the land and the honor, from Shefa‘amr, the Druze Mountain, and Lebanon. The battle of Hawsha and al-Kasair 12–16 April 1948.” The unveiling ceremony was attended by Mayor Nahed Hazem, as well as senior Druze political and religious public figures, including the spiritual leader Shaykh Muwaffaq Tarif, and Hamed ‘Amar, a Druze member of the Knesset from the extreme right-wing (and frequently anti-Arab) party, Yisrael Beiteinu. At the time, ‘Amar served as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset as well. An Israeli flag and the Druze flag were held by children of the Druze scouts who stood behind the stage.30 The DNC members who initiated the memorial did not attend the ceremony. In the ceremony, Mayor Hazem typically turned to localism to avoid any reference to the nationalist connotation of the battle by paying tribute to the

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martyrs who “fell defending the land of our dear city.”31 Shaykh Tarif praised the historical standing of Druze against various oppressors, including the occupation of Ibrahim al-Basha (in the 1830s), Ottoman rulers in Lebanon, French colonialism, and the Syrian President Adib al-Shishakli32 (who brutally oppressed Druze opposition in Syria in 1953). Both Shishakli and the Druze soldiers commemorated on the memorial, however, had belonged to the Arab Salvation Army and had fought on the same side in the 1948 Arab-­Zionist war, a relevant piece of information not mentioned in the ceremony. Needless to say, there was no reference to the identity of the opponent in the battle commemorated by the monument. In that way, the memory of fighters who fought as part of a pan-Arab effort to prevent the establishment of the State of Israel was neutralized from signs of Arab nationalism. Instead, Druze communal identity was emphasized to enable their inclusion in the narrative of a continuous Druze-Zionist alliance. The Monument for the 2005 Assault

In August 2005 an IDF deserter killed four Shefa‘amr residents in an attempt to prevent the withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip. Immediately after, two members of the local council demanded that a memorial monument be established to commemorate the victims.33 This time, eager to satisfy the angry Arab public and prevent the recurrence of the October 2000 events, state authorities even participated in financing a monument. However, Mayor Yasin and the victims’ families disagreed about the text that should be inscribed on it. The families, supported by the municipal council member of the NDA party, wanted to contextualize the commemoration in a broader political struggle, whereas the mayor insisted on a personal and apolitical framing.34 Following the appointment of Nahed Hazem as mayor in 2009, the city completed the monument with a relatively apolitical text, referring to “the pure martyrs of the Shefa‘amr massacre.” Shefa‘amr is the only Arab locality to establish three memorial monuments for three separate events. In all three cases, however, pressures to disconnect the memorials from Palestinian national history have been effective. KAFR KANA: THE SUCCESSFUL MONUMENT

Of the three monuments built following the FUC’s call in 1998, only the one in Kafr Kana has survived. Unveiled in September 2000 a few days before the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada, the Kafr Kana monument was built at the main

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entrance of the village near the new mosque. Since its establishment, it has functioned as a gathering point for events with national significance: Land Day ceremonies, ceremonies to memorialize the events of October 2000, and political demonstrations like those held against the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. The monument was built as a round plaza with a wall on its eastern side and a stone column in its center. The martyrs’ names are listed on the wall. ­Although a secular-dominated municipality promoted the monument, the power of political Islam in Kafr Kana in 2000 is evident in its structure and content. Human figures are absent, not only as a result of a purely artistic ­decision. Mayor Wasel Taha explicitly asked the artist Abed ‘Abdi (who co-­created the 1978 monument in Sakhnin that included human figures) to “respect I­slamic and Christian sensitivities.”35 Although two of the village’s dead were Christians, the list of names is headed by the BismAllah Islamic opening and the most famous Qur’anic verse on martyrs (3:169): “And reckon not those who are killed for Allah’s way as dead; nay, they are alive.” The poem of the Palestinian poet Ahmad Dahbour, on the square column in the center of the plaza, ensures the necessary balance by conveying Christian and secular elements. Its title, “We Died for Kafr Kana to Live,” can be read as a secular answer to the religious phrase (“died for Allah”) on the nearby wall. The poem paraphrases the reference to Kana in the New Testament: “Our name is a symbol and a meaning / And our death is a birth / We are the wedding of the Galilee / And the holidays / We are the plain of wheat.” The reference to a wedding has a nationalist connotation: wedding festivities occupy a special place in the Palestinian national imagination for after 1948 these festivities became one of the principal means by which Palestinians could expressed their national sentiments.36 The last lines of the short poem bound national and local pain and pride: “This monument begins from us / We wrote our motherland by wound.” The “Brotherhood of Peoples” that appeared in Hebrew on the Land Day monument created by ‘Abdi twenty-two years earlier disappeared. The dim nationalist discourse at the monument in Sakhnin became explicit here. The salience of the local-national nexus is a very significant feature of the monument in Kafr Kana, which later would be the model for memorial monuments in other localities. Although the original intention of the FUC was to commemorate the Nakba, the monument in Kafr Kana commemorates all the martyrs of Kafr Kana since 1936. Hence, instead of taking part in constituting national memory through a common supra-local experience, Kafr Kana’s municipality chose to emphasize the status of Kafr Kana in the Palestinian na-

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tional experience by a multi-generational monument that binds together the dead from the rebellion of 1936–1939, the Nakba in 1948, and Land Day. After a local boy, Muhammad Khamaysi, was killed during the October 2000 events, his name was added to the list.37 In this way, the monument in Kafr Kana became the first multi-generational memorial. It was preceded by the multi-generational exhibition of martyrs in Sakhnin that has been held every Land Day since 1999 and similar memorial books produced by several villages in the Galilee, such as ‘­Arabeh and Kafr Manda. Multi-generational commemoration is also a common practice of Zion­ist commemoration (following a similar European pattern). In Israel there are more than 300 monuments of this kind, and they are particularly common in rural Jewish settlements where there is proximity between the dead and the commemorators.38 Indeed, like the creator of the monument in ‘Aylabun, the person who initiated the monument in Kafr Kana (Mayor Wasel Taha) argued that he was inspired by Zionist memorial monuments: “I was travelling with my son to Tiberias and at the entrance to the city we saw a monument in memory of the soldiers who conquered Tiberias. My son asked me ‘What is this?’ so I explained it to him. Then he asked: “Daddy, why don’t we have such a monument for our dead?”39 LONG-TERM TRENDS

Several weeks after the establishment of the central monument in Kafr Kana, the Second Intifada erupted, and inside Israel thirteen Palestinians were killed in what will be later termed “the events of October 2000.” The post-October 2000 monuments reflect long-term trends in Palestinian society in Israel. ­Although all of these changes were visible even before October 2000, the killing of citizens that autumn certainly played a role in accelerating them. The first trend is a limited decline in caution. By the end of September 2000, only three municipalities had followed the FUC’s call to build memorial monuments (‘Aylabun, Shefa‘amr, and Kafr Kana). A fourth municipality, ‘Aylut, decided to build a memorial monument to the victims of the 1948 massacre in the village,40 but the foundations for the monument were built only a decade later. Furthermore, two of these monuments, in Shefa‘amr and ‘Aylabun, not only failed to become a pilgrimage site or a gathering point for political rallies, but were literally destroyed after a short time by local residents. The political earthquake of October 2000 made an important contribution to removing some of the self-imposed barriers. The unbearable ease with

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which Arab demonstrators were killed by the Israeli police in conjunction with the indifference to the police brutality of the frightened Jewish public caused popular anger and a sharp awareness of the fragility of the civil and political rights of Arabs in Israel. In the first years after the 2000 events, the risk taken by nationalizing public space seemed suddenly less frightening. If, in the past, the establishment of monuments was hesitant because of its potential to be perceived as threatening to Jewish citizens, after 2000 it became a necessary form of protest—probably because it was considered defiant. This trend is expressed most of all by the exponential increase in the number of monuments. The number of monuments for national martyrs built in the first three years after October 2000 is approximately equal to the number of monuments built from 1948 to September 2000. This process also expresses a growing popular recognition of the political role of historical remembrance and the production of specific autonomous “sites of memory” as a possible strategy of struggle. This trend is broader than the commemoration of martyrs. Monuments commemorating prominent Palestinian and Arab figures have been established in some localities—for Gamal Abdel Nasser in Abu Snan, for the poet Mahmoud Darwish in Makr and in Sha‘b, for the poet Abu ‘Arab in the depopulated village of Shajara, and for the soccer coach ‘Azmi Nasar in the ‘Aylut stadium. As a side note, it should be mentioned that this quantitative transformation is related as well to the gradual incorporation of memorials as a broader commemorative practice beyond the context of national commemoration: after October 2000 memorials were built also for Arab victims of car accidents. Another indication of declining caution among Palestinians in Israel is the “migration” of monuments from the cemeteries to the town square. Cemeteries had been considered safer not only because they are less visible than a town square but also because they are organized on a religious basis, and the religious context can dim a nationalist connotation. Therefore, half of the six monuments in the first wave (1976–1983) of monument building were located in cemeteries. In contrast, none of the twenty national memorial monuments built since 1998 are located in cemeteries. Eighteen of them are located at a central site that cannot be missed by occasional visitors to the towns. Still, none of the surviving memorial monuments is located outside of the jurisdiction of Arab municipalities. The appearance of monuments inside Arab towns and villages is indicative of the relatively autonomous power of the Arab local authorities, but at the same time their absence from the inter-

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urban space and the mixed Jewish-Arab cities is an indication of the inability of Palestinian citizens to appropriate these spaces even symbolically. The local orientation of the monuments is expressed as well by the absence of a central monument for the October 2000 events. Every municipality and some of the victims’ families took care of the commemoration of their own martyrs, while the other twelve dead were occasionally mentioned on some monuments—but none of the monuments were built as a result of supra-local coordination. The Committee of the October 2000 Martyrs’ Families initiated the development of a central commemorative site and the municipality of Kafr Manda even allocated a tract of land in its jurisdiction for the project, but there has not been any further progress.41 Another long term trend is the shifting relations between the local and the national. There is still an ongoing contest on the meaning of local identity, between aspirations to frame local pride as an aspect of national pride and the attempts to use localism as a protective measure from the state’s antagonism to Palestinian national identity. As a general trend, however, there is a mildly growing tendency to frame local pride as an aspect of national pride. The monuments built following October 2000 are the best examples of this process. One of the main controversies preceding the building of a monument in almost every locality was related to the question of who should be commemorated. Should the monument commemorate only the local victims of October 2000? Should it mention all the local victims in the history of the conflict? Or should it commemorate the thirteen Palestinian youngsters who were killed in Israel in October 2000? Some of the monuments are the results of private initiatives by the victims’ families, and in these monuments there is a tendency to prefer contextualization of the death in the al-Aqsa Intifada, together with the other Arab citizens who were killed. Most of the memorials, however, were built by municipalities, which tended to prefer the multi-generational local pattern, namely, highlighting the historical sacrifice made by the town/village, like in Kafr Kana. The creators of the monuments of this latter category seem to have used the commemoration of the October 2000 victims to compensate for the local commemoration “deficit.” Namely, this was an opportunity to commemorate all the dead in conflict-related events from the same locality. An example of that is the memorial monument built by the Kafr Manda municipality that mentions all the martyrs of Kafr Manda from 1936 until Hasan Bushnaq, who died in October 2000. In contrast, the private memorial monument built by the

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Bushnaq family at the junction where their son was killed refers to all thirteen martyrs of October 2000, but not to other Kafr Manda martyrs. In Sakhnin, after some controversy, it was decided to commemorate the thirteen martyrs together, partly because Land Day martyrs already had their own monument and the other dead from 1948 and 1936–1939 are commemorated in an annual memorial exhibition. The monument in ‘Arabeh commemorates all thirteen victims of October as well as the village’s victims since 1936 and other Palestinians killed in ‘Arabeh as part of the conflict. In Kafr Kana, the name of Muhammad Khamaysi, killed in October 2000, was added to the central monument, but the family also initiated a separate monument on the site of his killing dedicated to their son, “The martyr of the al-Aqsa Intifada.” Only in one locality, Umm al-Fahm, were the local victims of October 2000 commemorated alone, without the martyrs from other localities. The two patterns, the diachronic local commemoration (referring to all local martyrs since 1936) and the synchronic supra-local commemoration (referring to the martyrs of October 2000 country-wide), following the model of the Land Day monument), do not necessarily represent an ideological schism. At times the October 2000 commemoration movement triggered pressure from family members of past martyrs who had not been commemorated by a monument,42 while at other times there was not always sufficient documentation of past martyrs available to facilitate a longer historical framing. As part of the growing convergence between local and national pride, since 2000 activists in many localities where memorials had not been established yet started to look back at their local past searching for local martyrs who should be commemorated spatially. Demands to establish memorials for these martyrs were made by local activists in Tamra, Majd al-Kurum, Lydda, Tarshiha, and other localities, and the success of these initiatives depended on the readiness of each local authority to join the trend. The third long-term trend is the Islamization of monuments, which is an outgrowth of the growing importance of Islam as an element in the political identity of the Arabs in Israel, as well as the Islamic spirit of the Second Intifada. This tendency is expressed in the religious texts inscribed on the monuments, the absence of human figures, and icons like the image of the Dome of the Rock mosque. Two exceptions are the monument commemorating ‘Abd al-Nasir in Abu Snan, which includes an etching of his image, and the memorial monument built in the village of ‘Arabeh, which has a human sculpture in its center. In ‘Arabeh the Islamic Movement withdrew from the local popular committee

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that was established to commemorate October 2000, partly because of the significant involvement of women. As a result, secular forces had more freedom in shaping the monument.43 In Nazareth the Islamic Movement demanded to build a copy of an iconic Iranian memorial monument at the entrance to Nazareth. The city hall, dominated by secular parties, rejected this proposal. The formal reason was transportation-related technical obstacles, but according to Mahmoud Yazbak (who was then-chair of the Committee of the October 2000 Martyrs’ Families), the main reason was the concern that the monument might upset both the Christians in Nazareth and the Jewish public in Israel.44 THE LIMITS OF CHANGE

The declining caution of Palestinian commemoration in Israel as well as the transition toward merging local and national pride on monuments is evident, but they do not constitute an overarching change. These elements are expressed unevenly across different localities, and the old prudent tactics are still practiced—especially around monuments referring to 1948. Significantly, the only two monuments that were both dedicated exclusively to martyrs of 1948 and were based on cross-confessional inclusivity (in ‘Aylabun and Shefa‘amr) were effaced or distorted. In these same localities the two surviving 1948 monuments are based on communal exclusivity (for Christians in ‘Aylabun and Druze in Shefa‘amr). These monuments are respected and remain in good shape. In these cases the use of communal rather than national discourse is mobilized to counter the sensitivity of the Palestinian narrative of 1948 in the Israeli sphere. Furthermore, regarding 1948, it seems that not only monuments for martyrs face objections. In May 2014 a local party in Nazareth, Shabab al-Taghyir (The Youth of Change), built a monument in the memory of the Nakba— a twelve-foot high statue of a key—and located it in the middle of a square in a residential area of Nazareth (without getting municipal permission). The statue was vandalized the following night.45 Whether it was an independent initiative of local residents or “agents” sent by the Israeli authorities, as implied by the monument builders, memorial monuments for the Nakba are more likely to be vandalized than monuments commemorating most other events. And yet, the Nakba commemoration project has been successful in some realms, with the March of Return as a major example. However, the failure of the Nakba monuments stands in contrast both to other forms of the Nakba commemoration, as well as to memorial monuments for other events.

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To ­explain this exceptionality, we should first recognize the centrality of memorial monuments to Israeli national identity.46 It is likely that Israel has the world’s highest ratio of monuments per victim,47 most of them built by Jews to commemorate their victims in the Arab-Israeli conflict. As discussed earlier, some of my Palestinian interviewees attributed their motivation to establish a memorial partly to their desire to challenge Zionist commemoration. Naif Sam‘an from ‘Aylabun related it to his impression of memorials for Holocaust victims, and Wasel Taha from Kafr Kana stated that he was influenced by his son’s question about the IDF memorial in Tiberias. ‘Abed Anbetawi, secretary of the Shefa‘amr municipality in 1998, considered the monument only a first step on the way to building a larger commemorative center that would include a research institute, museum, and archive. When I interviewed him, he named this future center “Yad La-Banim” (which is the name of the official organization for the memorialization of IDF fallen soldiers).48 Regardless of whether Palestinians are intentionally aspiring to challenge Zionist commemoration, this is how the Israeli state authorities interpret their commemoration. Since Jewish Israelis utilize monuments as objects that legitimize and validate Israeli sovereignty as well as the ultimate spatial representation of patriotism,49 the use of monuments by Palestinians to commemorate their victims is deemed threatening, and the authorities react accordingly. Therefore, many Arab citizens still are not enthusiastic to adopt this challenging practice. It is noteworthy in this context that pan-Arab heroes who are unpopular in the Jewish Israeli collective memory might be widely popular among Palestinian citizens of Israel, but they are rarely commemorated by a monument. The image of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein might appear on invitations to weddings,50 but never on a statue in the public sphere. At the same time, Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens commemorated Saddam with monuments in Kafr Thulth and Bir Zeit in the West Bank. The one exception was for the most popular Arab leader in the twentieth century, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was commemorated by one low-key statue established in Abu Snan in the western Galilee in 2011. The monument was vandalized soon after its establishment. The uniqueness of the commemoration of the Nakba as compared with other events concerns the way Jewish Israeli anxiety about the Nakba memory is interpreted and processed by Palestinians. Unlike the other events I have discussed, since 2000 only commemorations of the Nakba have continued to elicit tangible threats from the Israeli authorities (see Chapter 7). For the intellectual elite who promoted the commemoration project, a symbolic challenging of the

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legitimacy of the State of Israel is a motivating factor. Among wider circles of citizens, however, this same challenging is still playing an inhibiting role as they fear the negative impact on their rights. Significantly, even in those contexts where Palestinian belonging is emphasized, it is done simultaneously with a reminder of the Israeli citizenship of the victims: the identity of those commemorated in Palestinian monuments in ­Israel draws the geographical boundaries of a national minority within a state. Only two low-key monuments have ever been dedicated to Palestinians killed beyond Israel’s borders (the monuments for the Sabra and Shatila massacre discussed earlier); they are not well known among Palestinians in Israel, and one of them, in Kafr Kana, is even unknown to most of the local residents. The Green Line, the pre-1967 borders of Israel, has a tangible impact on the monuments. It conveys a consistent distinction of the Palestinian citizens not only from Jewish Israelis but also from other Palestinians. In the next chapter we turn to the marginal status of Palestinian non-citizens in Palestinian commemoration inside Israel.

6

ON THE MARGINS OF COMMEMORATION

although the relative importance of the four major dates on the political calendar of Palestinians in Israel keeps changing, they are easy to identify in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Beyond the canonic events and the martyrs commemorated at recurring annual, mass processions, the historical remembrance of Palestinians in Israel includes many other dates and events, situated in various degrees of distance from the core of the canon. What makes them marginal might be one or more of the following: they have been commemorated mainly locally, without cross-regional participation; they have been commemorated mainly by a specific party or movement; the commemoration has been limited to press coverage, and the memory was not embodied by mass rallies; or the embodied commemoration in the form of mass rallies did not last more than a decade. Some examples of local annual commemoration with a national connotation but with limited participation were mentioned in previous chapters, for example: the people of Kafr Bir‘im have commemorated their expulsion by a parade or an art festival; there are annual commemorations of the massacres of 1948 in ‘Aylabun and 2005 in Shefa‘amr. Other examples include: the “Sandala” massacre in September 1957, referring to the death of fifteen school students from the explosion of an IDF live shell that was left in a field near the village. More than fifty years after the actual event, the people of Sandala organized an annual memorial ceremony, which has taken place for several years. The Committee of Prisoners (a sub-committee of the FUC) sanctioned the memorial service in 2013, but only leaders of the two factions of the Islamic Movements came to speak. In another example, in September 1961 Israeli soldiers killed 119

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five Palestinian citizens from Haifa, Sakhnin, and Umm al-Fahm who were attempting to cross the border into the Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands of Palestinians attended their funerals, and for several years after the event al-Ittihad made reference to the anniversary of the killings. Gradually, the protest over the event was absorbed into the Kafr Qasim commemoration, and in most years memorial ceremonies were attended primarily by family members. A more politicized event took place on the fiftieth anniversary of the event at the Midan theater in Haifa, but only several dozen people attended the memorial evening. Among Palestinians in Israel there are various examples of partisan events on the political calendar, spanning the breadth of the ideological spectrum. Given the prominence of the Communist Party among Palestinian intellectuals until the 1970s, foremost on this political calendar were International ­Workers’ Day (1 May), an important day of political mobilization characterized by mass demonstrations, the anniversary of the 1917 Soviet revolution (6 November), and the celebration of the Soviet victory in World War II on 8 May. In the late 1960s and 1970s, ­al-Ittihad dedicated to these three socialist holidays much more space and special graphics (photos, large red headlines) than the space and visual effects dedicated to the Kafr Qasim massacre anniversary. In general, al-Ittihad has been obsessed with memorial days. Throughout the years one could find annual references not only to major communist dates, but also to many minor events, such as the birthdays of Marx and Lenin, the day of Rosa Luxembourg’s assassination, the day the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima, the Cuban revolution, the 1958 revolution in Iraq, the centennial celebration of the commune in Paris in 1870, and others. With the rise of pan-Arabism, the Free Officers’ revolution in Egypt (23 July 1952) began to be celebrated by editorials in secular newspapers and later in summer camps of the NDA (see Chapter 8). The anniversary of Abdel Nasser’s death has received similar attention in the secular press.1 Since the entrance of the Islamic Movement into the sphere of national politics, the movement has tried to use elements from Islamic history for political mobilization within a national framing. From 1985 until the early 1990s, the movement organized a mass rally to commemorate the Battle of Badr, a key event in early Islam that is remembered as a decisive victory and a turning point in the power balance between the prophet Muhammad and his opponents. After the 1996 split of the Islamic Movement, the battle was celebrated only in low-key local events. Instead, from that year on the northern faction of the movement has organized a mass festival every fall with tens of thousands of participants under the title “Al-Aqsa is in Danger.”

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None of the above mentioned commemorations, though, are characterized by the combination of consistent country-wide attention, cross-party support, and cross-confessional participation—as the four major anchors of the political calendar do. While the marginal status of these dates and martyrs might be circumstantial, there are three dimensions of a more systematic pattern of marginalization. First, temporally—the period of the British Mandate is certainly part of contemporary Palestinian collective memory, but the events and martyrs who had great importance then did not gain a tangible presence on the political calendar, nor are they widely commemorated by monuments. The second dimension is thematic: as a general tendency, Palestinians in Israel have remained a safe distance from the armed struggle, especially when it targeted civilians. Therefore, they have rarely officially commemorated persons or themes related to the armed struggle. Third, and perhaps most important, is the geo-political dimension. Palestinian non-citizens of Israel have been represented in an extremely marginal way in public commemoration by Palestinian citizens of Israel. The second and third dimensions clearly distinguish the commemoration practiced by Palestinian citizens of Israel from that of other Palestinians. They clearly illustrate the power of citizenship to shape consciousness, even when this citizenship is truncated and keeps its carriers in constant subordination, and even when the collective narrative of the group is diametrically opposed to the official narrative of the state. THE MARTYRS OF THE 1930S AND THE GREAT REVOLT

As discussed in Chapter 1, elaborating a distinct martyrology was an important tool in the discursive delineation of the boundaries of Palestinian particularism under British rule. The martyrs of the mandate period did not disappear from the popular memory of Palestinians in Israel. The leading role of the peasants in the revolt and the role of popular poetry in nurturing the martyrs’ memory partially protected this memory from the effects of the collapse of the Palestinian urban centers. The reemergence of a militant Palestinian national movement in the late 1960s helped revive Palestinian interest in the 1936–1939 revolt and its martyrs. The Communist Party (under its various titles), which had unquestionably dominated the Palestinian discourse in Israel in the 1970s and the 1980s, shared with the PLO an anti-colonial perspective and the Arab-Palestinian national narrative. It shared as well the socialist vision of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP, a Marxist organization affiliated with the PLO)

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although the political status of communist leaders in Israel oriented them toward less revolutionary rhetoric and practice. Two emerging intellectual leaders, Ghassan Kanafani (1936–1972) in Lebanon and Tawfiq Zayyad (1929–1994) in Israel, belonged to the same generation who were too young to take part in the Great Revolt or in the dramatic events that preceded it, but who nevertheless absorbed the related mythology from their social environment. In fact, both men helped to canonize a 1930s martyrology. Kanafani published a seminal work about the revolt2 and contributed to the endurance of its mythology, particularly the myth of ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam. This publication was part of the particular tendency of secular and leftist Palestinian groups to adopt al-Qassam’s image as a role model.3 Zayyad, a poet and one of the emerging leaders of the Communist Party in Israel, formalized the remembrance of the martyr-poet Nuh Ibrahim4 as well as other poets of the revolution.5 Zayyad explained the political importance of his project: “The popular poem of the Palestinian rebel ‘Awd, one of the heroes of our people in 1936, while on the scaffold in the Acre prison, has the ability to instill in the human soul sacrifice and self-denial more than thousands of lectures, speeches and poems.”6 In the late 1970s, the Damascus-based music band, Firqat Aghanı al-‘Ashiqın (founded in 1977), performed Nuh Ibrahim’s poem about the three 1930 martyrs, “Min sijn ‘Akka,” as a song. This recording revived the popularity of the poem, and it has been played at Palestinian weddings.7 Land Day events in 1976 provided further momentum to martyrological commemoration. Two years later, in July 1978, al-Ittihad published an elegy commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the death of ‘Abd al-Rahim ­Mahmud, a prominent poet during the Great Revolt who was killed in battle in 1948;8 it published another article on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his death. Around this time nationalist activists established the al-Sawt publishing house in Nazareth, which decided to collect and publish Mahmud’s poems and to erect a tombstone on his grave.9 To a large extent this decision was an attempt to join a broader Palestinian trend: books dedicated to Mahmud had been published earlier in Beirut (1974) and in Nablus (1975). The “Israeli” collection of poems was finally published in 1985 by the Center for the Renewal of Arab Heritage in Taybeh, and the tomb was officially unveiled in 1986.10 The commemoration of Mahmud was part of a growing renewed interest in the 1936–1939 revolt. In April 1986 al-Ittihad dedicated its editorial to the fiftieth anniversary of the revolt. That same year the local branch of the DFPE in Tamra worked with the town council to establish a committee for commemorating

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Nuh Ibrahim, who was buried in the local cemetery. The committee collected testimonies from elders who remembered the revolt and the circumstances of Ibrahim’s death and initiated the publication of a book in his ­memory.11 Compared with the commemoration of the revolt, the reference to the three Palestinians executed in 1930, required more caution. From a mainstream ­Jewish-Israeli perspective, this commemoration was outrageous: the three men had been sentenced to death for their part in the massacre of Jews in Hebron and in Safad/Tsfat in August 1929, an event which became a constitutive myth of victimhood in the Zionist narrative. Residents of Acre continued to visit the graves of ­Hijazi, Jamjum, and al-Zir even after 1948, and these tombstones have remained in good shape.12 The awareness of the way Jewish Israelis remember the 1929 events, however, must have played a role in their omission from the political calendar and from high–profile, embodied commemoration. Interestingly, the three rarely have been mentioned by al-Ittihad, even during the renaissance of 1930s remembrance in the 1980s.13 Only the post-October 2000 era enabled public commemoration of the execution. In 2005 the Tawfiq ­Zayyad Center (unofficially related to the Communist Party) organized a onetime commemorative parade on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the execution. About 150 people participated in the parade, but it was not repeated in the years that followed (see Chapter 7). Similarly, reference to ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam in the press became more common. By the mid-1980s both the communist al-Ittihad and the nationalist al-Watan began dedicating articles to al-Qassam around the anniversary of his death. It is noteworthy that during the first Intifada in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the United Leadership in the territories announced a general strike on the anniversary of al-Qassam’s death, a sharp contrast to his low-profile commemoration inside Israel. Al-Qassam’s grave has been a contested site for years. It was vandalized even before 1948,14 but the escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2000 and frequent reference to al-­ Qassam in the media gave his memory increased public attention.15 The result was more cases of vandalism and more clean-up and renovation campaigns led by the Islamic Movement. A related development was the 2012 intention of the ­Israel National Roads Company to install a sewer line on the Muslim cemetery that houses al-Qassam’s tomb.16 Protests by the Islamic Movement and Arab ­Knesset members from other parties prevented the tomb’s destruction, and the Islamic Movement used the threat to further mobilize activists to maintain and protect it.

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While reviewing this list of local and partisan initiatives, one should ask to what extent this martyrology serves as a mobilizing force for continuous crossconfessional and cross-party popular political action, as in the case of the commemoration of the martyrs of Kafr Qasim, Land Day, and October 2000. The number of documented public commemorative events in memory of the 1930s martyrs among the Palestinian citizens of Israel since 1948 is small, and they usually took the form of low-scale gatherings for poetry reading. In fact, the number of participants in all these events combined does not reach the number of participants in one annual event of any of the four anchors of the political calendar. The results of my 2008 survey point in a similar direction. When asked to choose the most important three out of seven events suggested to them, only 12 percent picked the Great Revolt. This figure constituted about half of those who picked the second least-mentioned event, the Oslo Accords (23%), chosen far less than the Nakba (74%), the Kafr Qasim massacre (46%), October 2000 (40%), Land Day (39%), and the 1967 war (39%). This low frequency cannot be ascribed only to what cognitive psychologists call the “recency effect” since the Oslo Accords were signed only fifteen years prior but this event was not included in the choices of 77 percent of respondents. In addition, the second- and the third-oldest events (the Nakba and the Kafr Qasim massacre), were the first and the second most commonly mentioned events, respectively. The low frequency of mentioning the revolt is both the reason and the result of its exclusion from the political calendar. Although Palestinian intellectuals have attempted to revive the legacy of the revolt as a mobilizing heroic political myth, as described earlier, they have not included it in the annual commemorative cycle. In addition, they did not have a compulsory education system that would support the memory of the revolt (See Chapter 8). Another possible reason for the weak status of the revolt in contemporary Palestinian collective memory is that the dramatic effects of the Nakba effaced or blurred many of its traces. The implications of the 1967 war, for example, are highly relevant to contemporary politics. As a result of all these reasons, the revolt that resulted in more than five thousand Palestinians deaths, was more comprehensive in its geographical scope than any past or future Palestinian uprising, and left a rich legacy of martyrological poetry, nevertheless remained marginal in the historical remembrance of Palestinians in Israel. Elite efforts to maintain this remembrance through alternative education channels are discussed in Chapter 8.

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A SAFE DISTANCE FROM THE ARMED STRUGGLE

In the mid-1990s anthropologist Ted Swedenburg described the popular memory of Palestinians who live under Israeli rule as a battlefield between a state apparatus that attempted to suppress nationalist remembrance and the efforts of the PLO to forge a “national-popular” past by recalling memories of unified national struggle. Since the PLO lacked the apparatus of state power, it was particularly dependent on the support and goodwill of the Palestinian masses.17 While I do not deny the important role of these two actors and the analysis of the dynamics between them, Swedenburg’s analysis omits one element of the “triadic nexus” of nationalizing state, national minority, and external homeland (which in the Palestinian case is an external, national, institutional infrastructure).18 In this particular case, the Palestinian citizens of Israel are a vital group of actors who have been playing in this contested terrain and developing their own political institutions, including political parties and movements, as well as cross-partisan leadership organizations. These actors, each with their own agendas, are no less important than the Israeli state or the Palestinian nationalist leadership in shaping Palestinian popular memory inside Israel. In the 1970s and the 1980s, nowhere was the distance between the PLO and the Palestinian institutions inside Israel more pronounced than in their relation to the armed struggle. Following the Oslo Accords and the establishment of the PNA in 1994, the gaps between the two sides was narrowed but it is still evident. Inside Israel, Palestinian political leaders have adopted a very careful treatment of the armed struggle and have tended to avoid the inclusion of military myths in the political calendar or on memorial monuments. This cautious rhetoric has been projected backward to the 1948 war and earlier, as evidence by the marginalization of Jamjum, al-Zir, and Hijazi, the three men tried and hanged by Britain for their role in the 1929 riots. Another example is ‘Abd alQadir al-Husayni, the charismatic military leader killed in battle in1948, who is commonly glorified by both PNA- and Hamas-affiliated media,19 but rarely by the Arabic media inside Israel. In 2008 a statue of al-Husayni was placed in the West Bank village of Bir Zeit, but inside Israel there is no memorial monument dedicated to him. This absence might be explained partly by the fact that the Husaynis have no representation among the Palestinians in Israel. However, the rare attempts to include al-Husayni in the martyrology of the Palestinians inside Israel do not seem to be very successful. In 1986 the nationalist Progressive List bulletin, al-Watan, published an article that commemorated the thirtyeighth anniversary of his martyrdom, and a delegation of the Progressive List

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visited his tomb as part of the party’s attempts to display a greater loyalty to Palestinian national mythology than the communist-led DFPE.20 Notably, the memorial pilgrimage did not become a tradition. In my 2008 survey (see Introduction), when interviewees were asked to mention four persons whom they consider to be the most important in the history of the country in the last one hundred years, not a single one mentioned al-Husayni. Furthermore, during the heyday of plane hijackings and the first PLO attacks on Jewish Israeli civilians in the late 1960s, al-Ittihad condemned them unambiguously.21 The coverage in al-Ittihad of the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes during 1972 Munich Olympic Games was very similar to the line adopted by the Hebrew media. By extension, the Communist Party has carefully avoided adopting the broader military martyrology of the Palestinian organizations. Since 1969 the Fatah movement, the main faction within the PLO, has celebrated 7 January as “Martyrs’ Day.” The PFLP has its own Martyrs’ Day on 9 March, commemorating the killing of its leader Muhammad al-Aswad (known as the Che Guevara of Gaza), who was killed by Israeli soldiers on that date in 1973. Although individuals inside Israel have participated sporadically in the 7th of January ceremonies in PNA territory since 1994, neither the 7th of January nor the 9th of March have become a component of the political calendar of any Palestinian party inside Israel. Another crucial example in this context is a battle that took place in the village of Karameh (“honor” in Arabic) in the Jordan valley on 21 March 1968 between the Israeli army and the Jordanian artillery, supported by some Fatah fighters. The event became a pivotal myth in the emergence of a new Palestinian political identity, and for years afterward, the event was celebrated by the Fatah movement as the Battle of Karameh, as an incredible triumph and a turning point in Palestinian history.22 The Karameh myth-creators emphasized selfsacrifice, the superiority of spiritual over physical power, and an independent, self-reliant Palestinian resistance in sharp contrast to the humiliating defeat of the Arab armies nine months earlier in the 1967 war. Even when the myth was at its political zenith in the 1970s, however, and even with rapprochement between the PLO and the communists in Israel in the middle of this decade, there is no evidence that the latter commemorated Karameh in any form. The Palestinians in Israel were not active in this chapter of Palestinian resistance and had relatively narrow exposure to the glorifying rhetoric that followed the event. At the same time, this does not mean that the story itself was unknown. A single reference to Karameh in al-Ittihad in 1975 is

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evidence that the reporter assumed a previous knowledge of Karameh among his readers.23 During an Israeli attack on Palestinian armed organizations in south Lebanon in May 1975, the newspaper titled the resistance: “Karameh instead of Black September,” implying that this time the Arab fighters would be victorious. Interestingly, the only further reference to Karameh in the report appears in the subtitle where the current fight is described as similar to the Jordanian Karameh battle. This is significant because the Fatah tendency at the time was to downplay the role of the kingdom’s artillery units and to overemphasize the role of the Palestinian fighters. Al-Ittihad expressed satisfaction with Israel’s failure but avoided giving the credit to the PLO, either because of self-censorship or because of a latent competition with the later. In 1985 al-Ittihad published a weekly column called “Memorial Days” in which it listed major historical dates for the following week. Between 20 March, dedicated to the Tunisian Independence Day, and 22 March, dedicated to the foundation of the Communist Party in Laos, 21 March remained blank (similarly, al-Ittihad skipped 17 June—the day of 1930 executions). The next reference to Karameh in al-Ittihad was on the nineteenth anniversary of the battle in 1987. This time, in a minuscule sixty-four-word report, the newspaper described the battle as a Palestinian achievement. Land Day, which occurred at the time when the Karameh myth was most powerful among Palestinians elsewhere, was crucial for the Palestinians in ­Israel. This event helped them to acquire a collective self-image with a solid component of heroism, and afforded them a place of honor in the internal Palestinian and Arab hierarchy without risky association with the armed struggle. It is noteworthy that the six Palestinians who died on Land Day were not the only Palestinians killed by Israel during this period. The ten months that preceded Land Day were very tense along the border with Lebanon, and thirty-one members of Palestinian guerilla organizations were killed during various operations on or beyond the border inside Israel. Although many of them were glorified by the PLO’s Falastin al-thawra, they received little attention in al-Ittihad. Whenever Israeli civilians were killed in those operations, the communists were quick to condemn them. During the same period, a similar number of Palestinians were killed in Israeli retaliation attacks on Lebanese territory.24 None of them has ever been publicly commemorated inside Israel. Between 1972 and 1979 Israel assassinated more than thirteen senior leaders of Palestinian organizations. Al-Ittihad gave little attention to their memory with only two exceptions. Ghassan Kanafani (assassinated on 8 July 1972) and Kamal

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Nasir (assassinated in May 1973). Al-Ittihad’s adoption of the two most likely stems from the fact that the two were writers and intellectuals who took no part in attacks against Israeli civilians. After Land Day the paper eulogized Kanafani on some subsequent anniversaries of his assassination, and the municipal theater of Nazareth organized annual cultural gatherings in his memory. In contrast to the Communist Party’s extreme caution, during the 1980s the Progressive List and the Sons of the Village consistently attempted to unify the collective memory of Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere. Al-Watan, the Progressive List’s bulletin that was published from 1985 to 1987, commemorated some “forbidden” dates, such as Black September and 1 January, referring to this date in 1965 when Fatah launched its first armed-struggle operation (known as yawm al-intilaqa, Launching Day). Al-Ittihad, however, ignored this date until the 1980s, and even then it provided only minimal coverage of the celebrations in the occupied territories. The only time al-Ittihad dedicated an op-ed column to Launching Day was in 1984, following the establishment of the Progressive List and likely as a result of the pressure of this political competition. Still, that exceptional text was not signed by any of the editorial board members, but by the obscured nickname “Abu ‘Adi.”25 Al-Watan also commemorated the anniversary of the death of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni in 1948 and of PLO leaders such as Fahd Qawasma. Later, al-Raya, the bulletin of the Sons of the Village movement, commemorated the first anniversary of Israel’s 1988 assassination of Abu-Jihad (Khalil al-Wazir), a PLO leader and a symbol of the armed struggle. As evident by this commemoration, al-Raya did not keep a safe distance from the armed struggle, and in early 1989 it was shut down by the Israeli government. However, neither the Progressive List nor the Sons of the Village were able to turn their rhetorical commemoration of Palestinian fighters into mass demonstrations attended by thousands of marching bodies, such as the form the commemorations took in Kafr Qasim and on Land Day. Another prominent example of a safe distance from the armed struggle is the reference in the Palestinian press in Israel to suicide attacks, which began inside Israel in the mid-1990s. In sharp contrast to Palestinian newspapers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Palestinian newspapers in Israel usually did not refer to the perpetrators as shuhada’ (martyrs), a label that is accorded to any Palestinian who dies as a result of the Israeli Occupation. Indeed, the Palestinian press inside Israel consistently avoided this language if the individual in question attacked civilians (as opposed to soldiers),26 but it applied the title

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without hesitation to Palestinian citizens who were accidental victims of suicide attacks. For example, following the first such attack against Israeli civilians in ‘Afula on 6 April 1994, which al-Ittihad labeled a massacre, it pointedly referred to the Palestinian accidental casualty, Fadia Shilbi, as a “martyr,” and the Jewish casualties as “victims.” Furthermore, unlike Palestinian newspapers in the occupied territories, the paper also listed the names of the Jewish victims of the attack and printed personal details about each of them. Yahya ‘Ayyash, the chief bomb maker of Hamas, known for planning the attack in ‘Afula as well as several other deadly suicide attacks before being killed by Israel in 1996, became a national hero among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with several streets and squares in Palestinian cities named after him. ‘Ayyash, however, is absent from the pantheon of martyrs of Palestinian citizens inside Israel, and it is uncommon to find public praise of him.27 ‘Ayyash is viewed differently by Palestinians on the two sides of the Green Line, and his positive image among occupied non-citizens became a divisive issue in the relations between them and their fellow Palestinians in Israel. This divide is reflective of a deeper cleavage between Palestinians inside and outside Israel about the history and ongoing question of armed struggle. The former have overwhelmingly rejected violence as a potential means to gain their rights. In a 2012 survey of the adult Palestinian population within the Green Line, only 16.6 percent of the respondents agreed or tended to agree that they and their fellow citizens should use all means, including violence, to improve their conditions. While this figure was a significant increase from a similar survey conducted in 2003 (5.4 percent), non-violent legal means were still much more popular in 2012, including: general strikes (81%), protest abroad (71%), boycotting the parliamentary elections (41.3%).28 In addition, the historian Hillel Cohen, in his comparison of attitudes of Arab education students in Israel and in the West Bank, found that the Palestinian students in Israel were significantly more likely to view Palestinian violence in a negative light and to agree with both statements, that Palestinians (in addition to Israel) have committed war crimes and that force will not solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.29 Another comparative project that revealed this gap was conducted by three Palestinian groups inside and outside Israel.30 In 2008 these groups joined together to produce a booklet entitled “Sixty Years from the Nakba, Sixty Terms on the Nakba.” The editors solicited 150 terms related to the Nakba from Palestinian high school students in Israel, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon. As a project aiming to bridge the distance between Palestinians, the booklet makes no

130  ON THE MARGINS OF COMMEMORATION

mention of the differences between the perspectives of students from different countries. However, the booklet editors did observe a significant difference in the terms chosen by the students surveyed, depending on their location. Those from the refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon focused on the armed struggle and the Right of Return. Those from the West Bank tended to refer more to the destroyed Palestinian villages. Finally, Palestinian students from Israel focused on cultural aspects and tended more to refer to poets and ­authors.31 This variance reflects fundamental differences in the political and educational experiences of Palestinians in different contexts; unlike Palestinian refugees or occupied Palestinians, for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, a civic-political struggle is still available as an option. To be sure, as in other areas, since 2000 there has been a noticeable change in the way armed struggle is treated in Palestinian commemorations. Land Day 2014, for example, focused on “security prisoners” who are Palestinian citizens of Israel. Sa‘ada Ighbariyya, the mother of two brothers from Mushayrifeh who took part in the killing of three IDF soldiers in 1992, was among the speakers on the podium. Flashing backward to the 1986 commemoration of the Kafr Qasim massacre in which the mayor assertively distanced his town from a similar operation (see Chapter 2), the far-reaching rhetorical change is evident. EXCLUDING PALESTINIANS WHO ARE NOT ISRAELI CITIZENS

In Chapter 2 I referred to the exclusion of Palestinians killed in the 1956 Gaza Strip massacres from the commemorations of Palestinians inside Israel. Years later, however, the Communist Party used the memory of these massacres for political purposes, but to delegitimize a political rival, and not as a unifying national myth. In the 1984 elections, when the Progressive List emerged as thefirst non-Zionist electoral challenge to the communists, al-Ittihad attacked the military record of Matti Peled, a peace activist and senior candidate of the Progressive List who had served as the IDF military commander of the Gaza Strip in 1956–1957.32 The editors awkwardly tried to connect Peled to the massacres, ignoring the fact that he was appointed as military commander of the region only after they had occurred. After Peled withdrew from political life in 1988, al-Ittihad ceased to express any interest in the Gaza Strip massacres. However, this temporary mobilization of the 1956 Gaza Strip massacres in the context of inter-party rivalry illustrates that their memory has been available for political use, and therefore we must acknowledge that their omission from the commemorative repertoire of Palestinians in Israel is an active political choice.

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Another prominent relevant exclusion is the massacre of thousands of Palestinians in Tal al-Za‘tar (Lebanon) by Syrian forces and their allies in August 1976,33 only four months after Land Day. Together with the Sabra and Shatila massacre, Tal al-Za‘tar came to dominate Palestinian national history, at least in Lebanon.34 The two massacres, however, certainly do not dominate the history of the Palestinians in Israel. Al-Ittihad extensively covered the battle in Tal alZa‘tar immediately after its occurrence, and glorified it as “the symbol of sacrifice and steadfastness.”35 By the second anniversary, however, al-Ittihad only republished a short report on the commemoration of the event in Lebanon that had been published previously in the PLO bulletin. Furthermore, Tal al-Za‘tar failed to gain an embodied commemoration such as rallies or processions, and in the long term the event remained outside of the commemorative repertoire of Palestinians in Israel. In contrast, the footprint of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in September 1982 lasted longer. Following the massacre the Land Committee decided to establish an annual memorial day. On the first anniversary a general strike was announced, three thousand people participated in a parade in Nazareth, and some smaller memorial parades took place in other villages and towns in the Galilee. A similar pattern characterized the second anniversary. From the third anniversary, the memorial rallies took place on a low scale. On the third anniversary, al-Ittihad reported on the general strike and mass demonstration in Lebanon, but to illustrate the participation of Palestinians in Israel, the newspaper used an archive photo that was taken right after the massacre, three years earlier. The minor memorial gathering continued until the early 1990s but since then, the massacre has been commemorated mainly textually by the press. The difference between the relative endurance of the commemoration of Sabra and Shatila and the silence regarding the Tal al-Za‘tar massacre indicates once again that Palestinian commemoration in Israel is first of all a form of protest of citizens against their state. In Sabra and Shatila Israeli responsibility was much more evident, and accordingly the event was followed by large-scale protest in Israel, far beyond the boundaries of the Palestinian public. The massacre was adopted by left-wing Jewish activists, both Zionists and non-­Zionists, as a symbol of the moral bankruptcy of Ariel Sharon, Minister of Defense who planned the war, and the ruling Likud party. The hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis who came to Tel Aviv to protest the war following the massacre legitimized the commemoration of the massacre in the Israeli public sphere. Al-Ittihad explicitly mentioned this 1982 mass demonstration in an editorial

132  ON THE MARGINS OF COMMEMORATION

protesting the high fine imposed on an Arab boy wearing a shirt with the words “Sabra and Shatila” during the second anniversary of the massacre. This demonstration was presented as proof that protesting the massacre was a legitimate act in the Israeli public sphere.36 Small-scale commemoration of the event among Jewish Israelis continued for several years, and on the fifth anniversary of the massacre, a small commemorative rally took place in Tel Aviv. Furthermore, a popular 1980s Hebrew song commemorates the massacre (“Emtsa September,” written by Astar Shamir). This public legitimacy to protest the massacre is probably a major reason for its exceptional status as the only event that took place outside of Israel that was almost included in the canonized political calendar of the Palestinians inside. Furthermore, unlike many other cases of large-scale killing of Palestinian non-citizens, the victims of Sabra and Shatila are the only ones commemorated by monuments as two monuments in their memory were established in Laqiyya and Kafr Kana (see Chapter 4). The distinction between expressions of solidarity and long-term inclusion in politicized commemoration is evident as well in the case of the martyrs of the first Palestinian Intifada. This Intifada was mostly unarmed in its initial stages, and Palestinian victims gained much attention from the Palestinian media in Israel. Newspapers counted the dead, published their photos, told their stories, glorified them, and took part in the pan-Palestinian project of myth-making. Al-Ittihad even dedicated a daily column to personal stories of martyrs, publishing one story of a martyr per day. The terminology used in al-Ittihad in this coverage was virtually indistinguishable from that used in the occupied territories.37 In 1988 the conventions of at least two Arab parties, the Progressive List and the Arab Democratic Party, opened with a moment of silence in the memory of the “martyrs of the Intifada.”38 These immediate expressions of solidarity and sympathy were adopted by other parties, but they did not leave any traces on the Palestinian political calendar and spatial commemoration inside Israel. Especially telling in this context are the riots that broke out in the square at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem on 8 October 1990, during which Israeli police killed between seventeen and twenty-three Palestinians. The victims were commemorated on a stone slab at the entrance to the Muslim cemetery near the Lions’ Gate in East Jerusalem. Inside the Green Line, however, there is no spatial commemoration of the event, and the date was not included on the political calendar. Significantly, however, one of the victims of the Haram al-Sharif massacre, ‘Adnan Khalaf Mawasi from Tamra, was an Israeli citizen. With the prolifera-

ON THE MARGINS OF COMMEMORATION 133

tion of memorial monuments since October 2000, his family demanded that the Tamra local council establish a memorial monument for him. When the mayor was unsupportive, the local branch of the NDA adopted the martyr, and in 2009 the party started a campaign to commemorate him. A major argument in the campaign was that Tamra deserved to have its own martyr like other towns. The martyr’s brother stated: “In the last parade in ‘Arabeh [referring to the commemorative parade for the October 2000 events] I heard a conversation between the town’s youth wondering: ‘Why don’t we have a martyr in our town?’ [ . . . ] and I cannot understand why the martyrs are commemorated in the other towns except in Tamra.”39 Clearly, since the commemoration of Al-Aqsa Day refers to the events that occurred inside the Green Line in October 2000, “the other towns” are those towns inside pre-1967 Israel commemorating their martyrs, who presumably gain much prestige by this commemoration. The justification for building a memorial, then, was primarily the potential benefit for Tamra in the internal competition of prestige, whereas the motivation to commemorate the massacre of 1990 (as opposed to the individual martyr) is marginal. The 1994 massacre in Hebron is another case that illustrates once more the difference between empathy and solidarity, on the one hand, and the active inclusion of martyrs in a repertoire of political commemoration. On 25 February 1994 an American-born Jewish settler entered the mosque in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and killed twenty-nine Palestinians with an automatic weapon. The PNA, Fatah, and Hamas media has commemorated the event annually by retelling the story of the massacre and interviewing eye witnesses and relatives of the martyrs. Except in the first years after the massacre, the Arab media in Israel was less outspoken in relation to the massacre. In the riots that took place outside and inside the Green Line immediately following the massacre, nineteen Palestinians were killed, including one Israeli citizen from Rahat, Muhammad Abu Jami‘. A year later, al-Ittihad reported that the Rahat municipal council commemorated his death with a popular procession to his grave and the planting of an olive tree in the cemetery.40 That same year, commemorative demonstrations for the massacre itself were reported in various locations in the West Bank (Hebron, Na‘alin)41 but not anywhere inside the Green Line. In Hebron thousands of Palestinians have participated in the annual commemorative prayer every year. Inside Israel, the only institutional commemoration of the event refers particularly to the martyr from Rahat. In 1998, following his family’s request, the Rahat local council established a ­memorial pillar near the Rahat city hall to commemorate him. The text on the

134  ON THE MARGINS OF COMMEMORATION

pillar mentions that he was martyred following the massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, but there is no reference to other Palestinians killed in the massacre itself or in the riots that followed it. If the singling out of the martyrs in Tamra and Rahat might be explained simply as local bereavement and pride and not as a marker of the socio-­geographical boundaries of a trapped minority, the monuments commemorating al-Aqsa Day provide unmistakable visual representation of this socio-­geographical cartography. The monument in Figure 4 is one out of ten memorials that Palestinian citizens of Israel built to commemorate the martyrs of October 2000. It is located in Jat, a Palestinian town in the Triangle. At first glance, the memorial seems to convey only an unambiguous and overarching commitment to Palestinian nationalism. The map of British-Mandate Palestine, the colors of the Palestinian flag, and the drawing of the Dome of the Rock are all well-known icons of Palestinian national identity. The red text underneath (not on the frame) reads “Palestine”; the red text in the middle indicates the monument’s title: The Martyrs of the al-Aqsa Intifada. The names of the thirteen martyrs are written in black and green, and an arrow leads from each name to the location of the person’s death on the map (which with the exception of one case is also the town or village where the martyr was born and raised). What is most significant about this monument, however, is its omissions. During the exact same time frame, forty-seven other Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, the events of late September and early October 2000 were only the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada, in which more than 3,300 Palestinians were killed over the course of four years. It is clear that the meaningful dividing line between the martyrs commemorated on this monument and the other Palestinians killed in the Intifada is their Israeli citizenship. All the monument’s martyrs were killed within the internationally recognized borders of ­Israel, and all but one were Israeli citizens. The exception, Muslih Abu Jarad, was a resident of the Gaza Strip who worked in Umm al-Fahm. He was among three Palestinians killed there and, thus, was included on the list of martyrs. Other victims, like Mahmud Musa‘ad who died two days later and only eight miles away but beyond the Green Line, were left off the monument in Jat (and, as we shall see, every other monument inside Israel). In other words, according to this monument, the killing of Palestinians in Israel constituted a single event while the killing of other Palestinians—even though occurring on the same days—are considered as other, separate events.

Figure 4. Memorial monument, including the names of those killed in October 2000 inside the

Green Line, entitled The Martyrs of the al-Aqsa Intifada, in Jat. Source: Photo by the author.

136  ON THE MARGINS OF COMMEMORATION

The monument in Jat is only one example of monuments built to commemorate the Palestinian martyrs of October 2000. By referring only to the victims who died inside the Green Line while ignoring the forty-seven Palestinians who were killed beyond it on the exact same days, these monuments delineate the Green Line as the relevant boundary for political identification. Even the familial monument commemorating Hasan Bushnaq in Kafr Manda, which refers to the victims as martyrs who died in the al-Aqsa Battle (indicating solidarity with the uprising of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip), includes only the thirteen victims who died inside the Green Line. In other words, even a private monument, which is relatively free of the pressures applied on a state-dependent municipality, and even when the text explicitly expressed solidarity with Palestinians elsewhere, still creates distinctions between Palestinians in Israel and other Palestinians. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OMISSION

The significance of this phenomenon is two-fold. First, the culture of martyrological commemoration among Palestinians in Israel is related to the emergence of a political identity with strong affinity to the Palestinian struggle outside Israel but with distinct characteristics and agendas. Palestinian martyrological commemoration inside Israel, from the massacre in Kafr Qasim to October 2000, is part of a struggle for civic equality, and therefore Palestinians who are not citizens are usually excluded from it. The Future Vision Documents, published by Arab intellectuals and NGO activists in Israel in 2006 and 2007, reflect this political orientation: Israel within the Green Line is considered a fait accompli, but its character as a nationalizing Jewish state is challenged.42 The exclusion of other Palestinians from Palestinian commemoration inside Israel is exclusion from the process of the public politicization of death, not from emotional sympathy or national solidarity. It does not mean that Palestinians in Israel are “less Palestinian” or are indifferent to Palestinian victims. This exclusion does mean, however, that internal boundaries among Palestinians, created by the separation imposed by different political realities, are very meaningful and shape diverse collective imaginations and diverse forms of struggle. Second, Palestinian commemoration inside pre-1967 Israel is part of an attempt to confront, as well as to dialogue with Jewish citizens and the Israeli state. Muhammad ‘Ali Taha, the Nakba and Steadfastness Committee chair, unambiguously acknowledged that the Nakba commemoration project aimed to target both Palestinian and Jewish-Israeli audiences.43 While Israel denies its

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responsibility for Palestinian suffering, when the victims are Israeli citizens the denial becomes more complicated since it contradicts both Israel’s claim to sovereignty and its aspiration of being considered a liberal democracy. The exclusion of Palestinian non-citizens and themes of armed struggle are aspects of cautious commemoration practiced by Palestinians inside Israel. This caution necessary partly due to the strict official and unofficial surveillance imposed on Palestinian commemoration in Israel. The mechanisms of this surveillance and its historical development are the topic of the next chapter.

7

DISCIPLINING PALESTINIAN MEMORY

in 1987 an Israeli military band won the first prize in the Israeli Songs Festival. The winning song, “A Dove with an Olive Branch,” became a hit. The popular military radio station Galei Tsahal, however, initially refused to broadcast it, most likely because of the fourth line in the lyrics: I have a picture at home of a dove with an olive branch. Above it the wheel sun, on its feet the ravages of war The dove of peace On the ruins of another nation Perfect picture, a dream within a framework.

Only after the composer, Talma Alyagon-Roz, agreed to provide a second version in which the fourth line was replaced by the words “it is painted by a master hand,” and after a new version was recorded, did the station remove its objection. The song is still popular in Israel today, but few are familiar with the original text. The modified lyrics of “A Dove with an Olive Branch” are symptomatic of both the common anxiety among Jewish Israeli citizens regarding a public discussion of the 1948 events and the consistent denial of the existence of a thriving Palestinian community before that war. The psychologist Tova Buksbaum has argued that the parallel existence of the two versions of the song is a metaphor for the simultaneous existence and non-existence of the Nakba in Israeli collective consciousness.1 Researcher Noga Kadman has described the depopulated Palestinian villages as existing on “the margin of consciousness” of Jewish Israelis.2 The historian Anita Shapira has written that the Israeli Jewish remembrance of the expulsion of Palestinians “continues to hover in the 139

140  DISCIPLINING PALESTINIAN MEMORY

twilight zone between the conscious and unconscious, between repression and recognition.”3 This borderline nature is what allows both a military band to sing “on the ruins of another nation,” as well as the demands for the subsequent “correction” of the lyrics. These lyrics were a reminder of an inconvenient truth: it was not only the war that established the Jewish state, but the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that enabled the creation of a stable Jewish majority in Israel in its pre-1967 borders. The sensitive status of the remembrance of 1948 memories is expressed as well in public opinion polls. The Jewish Israeli public tends to be relatively supportive of Arab-Jewish equality in many spheres. In a 2008–2009 survey conducted by the Dahaf Institute (Figure 5), more than half of the Jewish Israeli interviewees supported legislation that would guarantee that Arab citizens ­receive their

Statement

Agree or tend to agree (%)

The State of Israel should acknowledge its share of responsibility for the Nakba of the Palestinian people

18.8

The state should give Arab citizens appropriate expression in its symbols, flag and anthem

26.6

The State of Israel should be a state in which Hebrew and Arabic have equal status

37.6

I would support a plan to narrow the gaps between Jews and Arabs even if it would harm me

39.3

Israel should be a state of the two peoples, the Jews and the Arabs

43.3

The State of Israel should recognize Arab citizens as a national minority and as part of the Palestinian people

47.7

There should be a law that guarantees appropriate representation for Arab citizens in all state institutions

54.9

The state should be committed to narrowing the gaps between Jews and Arabs as it is committed to narrowing the gap between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews

56.6

A law should guarantee that Arab citizens receive their appropriate share in the state budget

57.7

Figure 5. Support among Jewish Israelis for policies to increase equality between Jews and Arabs,

2008–2009. Based on a survey imitated by Sikkuy and conducted by the Dahaf Institute between December 2008 and April 2009 with a representative sample of Jewish Israeli citizens aged 25 to 50 (N=550). Dataset provided to the author by Sikkuy (Association for the Advancement of Civic Equality Report).

DISCIPLINING PALESTINIAN MEMORY 141

appropriate share in the state budget and appropriate representation in all state institutions. But where respondents showed reluctance was over questions of symbols and identity, while the most extreme objection was related to history. The only statement that was supported by less than 20 percent of the Jewish interviewees was one related to the past: “The State of Israel should acknowledge its share of responsibility for the Nakba of the Palestinian people.” In other words, Arab and Jewish citizens are divided about the past much more than they are divided about the present. The growing importance of the past, especially the 1948 war, in the political culture of the Arabs in Israel both reflects and explains the deterioration of Arab-Jewish relations since the late 1990s. Undoubtedly the reluctance of Jewish Israelis to accede to the demand to acknowledge Israeli responsibility for the Nakba is its connection to two related and common anxieties of the Jewish Israeli public: the anxiety over the legitimacy of the Zionist project and the anxiety over reversibility. The 1948 war is remembered by most Jewish Israelis as the War of Independence, a constitutive redemptive moment. It is commemorated as the h ­ eroic defensive fight of a small and poorly armed community that, with its back against the wall, defeated seven Arab armies against all odds. For many years the producers of the hegemonic Israeli-Zionist collective memory delegitimized public discussion about the tragic price the Palestinians paid for the establishment of the Jewish state, the fate of Palestinian refugees, and the drastic change in the country’s landscape following the war.4 Acknowledging responsibility might be interpreted as recognition that Israel was born in sin. This is much more than taking responsibility over a crime, as it might undermine the moral justification for the existence of Israel and Israeli national identity. The concern of Jewish Israeli anxiety over legitimacy can be illustrated by comparison to another country. In both Israel and Turkey the authorities deny the state’s responsibility for the collective tragedy of the “other.” In both cases, as well, this denial is fundamental to the legitimacy of the state. The expulsion of the Palestinians is considered a pre-condition for the establishment of a state with a stable Jewish majority. Similarly, some scholars argue that the elimination of ethno-religious minorities in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic (the Armenian genocide and later the forced “population exchange” of Greeks) was necessary for the establishment of a relatively homogenous, ethnic Turkish nation-state.5 As a result, Turkish authorities restrict the commemoration of a long list of atrocities against ethnic and religious minorities.6 More specifically, the Israeli

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“Nakba anxiety” is similar to the sensitivity of the Turkish state to the commemoration of the Armenian genocide. Numerous Turkish intellectuals have faced trial for “insulting Turkishness” because they acknowledged that what happened to Armenians in 1915 amounted to genocide.7 Spatially, although there is still a tiny Armenian minority in Turkey (about 70,000 people) and despite the fact that about 140 memorial monuments commemorating the Armenian genocide have been built in twenty-five countries, not even one of them was built in Turkey.8 Israeli sensitivity, however, has another crucial element that does not exist in Turkey or, for that matter, in other cases of mass catastrophe imposed on indigenous people like in North America or Australia. Commemoration of the Nakba is related to the most sensitive controversy over the Right of Return for the Palestinian refugees, recognition of which is considered by Zionists as an existential threat that would bring about the end of the Jewish state. Therefore, whereas in recent years official Turkey has made some tiny reconciliatory gestures, including offering “condolence,”9 even these sorts of minimalistic steps are unlikely to be seen soon in contemporary Israel. Remembering the Nakba is perceived by state agencies as challenging the legitimacy of the State of Israel and, therefore, attempts to commemorate it by Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel are carefully monitored.10 This monitoring and disciplining by the state extends as well to the commemoration of other events that could potentially contribute to Palestinian national political mobilization. “MILITARY RULE” IN THE 1970S AND 1980S

Probably the most difficult task for Israeli authorities in their attempts to efface Palestinian remembrance of the Nakba is dealing with the personal memories of internally displaced Palestinians whose attachment to their depopulated villages was unmediated. For the approximately 25,000 initial internal refugees in Israel, Israel’s policy since 1948 aimed to disconnect them from their original villages and to prevent the development of a “refugee identity.”11 This policy included physical restrictions on their access to their former lands (including establishment of new Jewish villages on these lands), providing reparations or alternative housing, obliterating the names of the abandoned villages from state maps, removing the internal refugees from United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) figures, registering them in the Israeli Population Registry as inhabitants of their host villages rather than their original ones, and excluding the abandoned villages and the refugee problem from the school curriculum, including that used for Arab pupils.12

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Another major area of state control has been the political calendar itself. For the military government officers and the Shabak in the 1950s and 1960s, the celebration of Israel’s Independence Day was the ultimate test of Palestinian loyalty, a litmus test that enabled the state to rank Arabs according to their levels of obedience. Every year, all state institutions in Arab towns and villages were required to perform festive ceremonies and raise the Israeli flag.13 Police informants received detailed instructions to report on the atmosphere in their villages on Independence Day. Negative attitudes, such as removing or vandalizing flags and pictures of leaders, or speeches that referred to the “tragedy of the Palestinian people,” were followed up with police investigations and arrests.14 Similarly, the politicization of the memory of the 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre through cyclical commemoration was strictly monitored and restricted by the military government. This monitoring included “preventive arrests” of local and regional activists before the annual memorial days, as well as physical blocking of the entrance to Kafr Qasim.15 Military governors, through their loyal appointees in the local council of Kafr Qasim, tried to contain the commemoration and shape the annual anniversary as a religious rite and personal expression of mourning. In some years, the local council published an announcement before the anniversary calling the residents of Kafr Qasim to “limit themselves to reading surat al-Fatiha [the opening chapter of the Qur’an, commonly read in Islamic memorial services].”16 Controversy over this constrained commemoration led to severe inter-generational tensions in the village between young politicized activists and a very cautious council that represented the careful approach of the older generation.17 Interestingly, the end of the military government in 1966 did not immediately change these policies and methods. Although since the 1970s Arab citizens have not been forced to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day and the Kafr Qasim massacre has been commemorated more freely, state authorities continue to express strong concerns for how Palestinians in Israel construct their political calendar. Regarding Land Day, it is evident that state authorities were well aware of the mobilizing potential of its commemoration. The first Land Day anniversary in 1977 took place in ‘Arabeh. Those who arrived to participate in the commemorative rally faced a police checkpoint where policemen wrote down their ID numbers and tried to convince them not to participate in the rally. Israel’s main bus company, Egged, as well as some smaller bus companies, refused to rent buses for the event.18

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Some of the military government’s tactics of surveillance of Palestinian commemoration survived during the 1980s as well. “Preventive arrests” of activists before the annual Land Day commemoration were common. Some of the participants in Land Day rallies who waved a Palestinian flag or uttered Palestinian national slogans were jailed, sometimes for months.19 In 1982 the mayor of Umm al-Fahm was tried in court for his decision to close schools and the local council of Umm al-Fahm on Land Day.20 As late as 1988, following the eruption of the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories and the growing Israeli concern over its spreading into the Green Line, Prime Minster Yitzhak Shamir decided to shut down al-Ittihad from 25 to 31 March, to prevent “incitement” around Land Day events. A classified letter sent before the eighth anniversary of Land Day in 1984 by Binyamin Gur Arieh, the Arab Affairs Advisor to Prime Minster Shamir, outlined the preemptive actions taken to “calm down the atmosphere.” These actions included: meeting with “moderate” Arab mayors to coordinate the discipline efforts; postponing more land confiscations until after Land Day; instructing journalists for Arab affairs in the Hebrew media to tone down their reporting on Land Day; warning the imams regarding the content of their mosque sermons on Friday, 30 March (the warning was made through their employer, the Ministry of Religious Affairs to guarantee its effectiveness); and warning school directors not to join the one-hour strike planned for Thursday, 29 March (again the warning was made through their employer, the Ministry of Education).21 The need to warn school directors was related to the growing confidence of some Arab local councils following Land Day. Since high school teachers are employed by the local councils, which control the school facilities as well, in the years following Land Day some of the more daring local councils attempted to extend the commemoration into the state education system. School directors found themselves under cross-pressures from the local council and the Ministry of Education.22 Commemorative initiatives that alarmed the state authorities came not only from teachers but from students as well. In the mid-1980s the Association of Arab High School Students initiated the dedication of one regular teaching hour for discussing Land Day in Arab schools every year on 30 March, in addition to a moment of silence in memory of the martyrs,23 and later extended this initiative to the Kafr Qasim massacre memorial day. According to a letter sent in December 1986 from the Office of the Minister Responsible for Minority Affairs to the Ministry of Education, they did it “presumably with a consid-

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erable success,” and the event “already became a tradition.” The letter’s author was concerned that “. . . it is possible that the association would ‘decide’ soon on mentioning other memorial days and events inside the schools (the 1st of January is coming soon . . . ).”24 While the local Arab authorities played a crucial role in organizing commemoration ceremonies, they also served as an effective way for the state authorities to monitor the commemoration events. This dynamic was much more blatant under military rule in the case of the Kafr Qasim commemoration,25 but the dependency of local authorities on the government ensured its continuation in later decades, although in a more subtle way. Local authorities remained financially dependent on the state in many areas, especially in education and welfare. In the early 1980s, the relative share of government funding for the expenditures of all local authorities in Israel was approximately 70 percent.26 Most of the money transferred to the local authorities was based on transparent criteria, but government ministries still had a wide range of maneuvering, and therefore mayors had structural interests in keeping good relations with the government. In addition, since both the state authorities and the mayors shared interests in maintaining stability, they frequently coordinated their efforts. Before the eighth anniversary of Land Day in 1984, for example, the chief of the northern region of the police, Meir Sadeh, attended a meeting at the ‘Arabeh city hall with all three mayors of the “Land Day Triangle” (Sakhnin, ‘Arabeh, and Deir Hanna). The protocol of the meeting sheds light on the relations between the local authorities and the police. It is noteworthy that the protocols were required to be submitted to the Ministry of Interior, and therefore their content reflects to a large extent the impression-management practiced by local governments toward the central authorities. ‘Arabeh’s mayor at the time, Muhammad Nassar of the DFPE, declared a collective commitment to uphold public order. The police chief declared his commitment to allow the commemorative event to take place, and moved on to define the allowed parameters of commemoration. He reminded the members of the local council that the Terrorism Law forbids waving the Palestinian flag and that in the previous year the police had to exercise force to remove a flag. He also warned them that there was no permission to block the main road. In his response, one of the council members, Ahmad Na‘amna, praised the cooperation between the local council and the police in the past and emphasized the commitment of the three local councils to maintain order and to

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prevent any illegal slogans or waving the Palestinian flag. He argued that those who “­violated the order” in the past came from outside of ‘Arabeh, and he specifically blamed the Matspen movement.27 Mayor Nassar added that the local slogans have always been legal and promised to prevent the appearance of any “illegal slogans” in his town’s commemorations.28 The cautious tone of the members of the local council of ‘Arabeh, a town considered to have a leading role in Land Day commemorations, illustrates the limited protest that could be exercised by local authorities. Since their own ­status is defined by Israeli law, local councils are unable to cross the line of legality, even if the law forbids the mere expression of their national sentiments and belonging. DECLINING SURVEILLANCE

Since the late 1980s, however, the state’s motivation and ability to discipline Palestinian memory have rapidly waned as a result of several interrelated socio­ political processes in the region, the state, and within both Jewish and Arab societies. First, the strengthening of the liberal discourse of citizenship and the increased power of the Israeli Supreme Court, which defended this discourse,29 created a wider range of freedom of speech. As early as 1984, in a discussion about government policy toward the National Committee of Arab Mayors, Nahman Tal of the Shabak complained that “in 1964 it was possible to outlaw al-Ard,30 but today it is much more difficult to outlaw a movement.”31 Furthermore, among certain elements of the Jewish Israeli academic elite and related circles, publications of the “New Historians”32 partially legitimized public discussion about Israel’s responsibility for the Palestinian tragedy.33 The exclusion of Egypt from the Arab-Israeli military conflict after the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the dismantling of the Soviet Union—the major strategic ally of Israel’s enemies—also reduced the siege mentality in Israel by abating existential anxieties and increasing the collective self-confidence of Jewish society. Later on, the Oslo process, which became public in September 1993, intensified this dynamic and temporarily introduced some “post-conflict” attitudes among parts of the Israeli elite, who conveniently adopted the view in the late 1990s that the conflict had virtually ended. At the same time, Palestinian society in Israel gained confidence with the emergence of new circles of educated elites and a formalized leadership in the form of the FUC and its sub-committees. Moreover, Arab local governments gradually gained more autonomy from the government.34 By 2005 the

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relative share of government funding in the expenditures of all local authorities in ­Israel had shrunk to 40 percent.35 This was especially significant in the field of high school education because, as mentioned previously, local councils nominate teachers for these schools and pay their salaries. Another crucial development was the emergence of an independent profit-driven Arabic press in the 1980s.36 Because historical writing attracts the attention of a wider social circle than other social sciences, “history is also business.”37 The profit-driven newspapers played an important role in the production of the cultural memory of the Nakba, especially in the 1990s. This empowerment of Palestinian citizens and the decline in the legitimacy of the unrefined, coercive disciplining of Palestinian commemoration was reflected in a heated debate that took place in the Knesset assembly on 9 December 1992.38 The debate dealt with a proposal to outlaw Campus, the Arab students’ association at the University of Haifa. One of the major concerns of Gonen Segev, the MK from the right-wing Tsomet party who initiated the discussion, was a calendar distributed by the student organization. The calendar referenced key dates in the Palestinian national narrative. Segev protested: Some of the dates mentioned in this calendar: the anniversary of the Palestinian revolution; Land Day; the Deir Yasin massacre; the partition plan; the anniversary of the trauma of 1948 (and I know this is the day when the war of liberation of my people erupted) [ . . . ]; the Balfour declaration is mentioned there as well and also the Intifada anniversary. The anniversary of the Palestinian revolution and Palestinian Independence Day—the day is mentioned at the University of Haifa as a holiday. Honorable Speaker, Knesset members, I am talking about students at the University of Haifa and not about students at Bir-Zeit or al-Najah [Palestinian universities in the West Bank—T.S.]. I am talking about Arab students born in Israel in its limited pre-1967 borders. You call them Israelis. They call themselves first of all Palestinians. They mention the dates of the Palestinian people and make our national holidays days of mourning. This is the main problem. MK Tawfik Zayyad [DFPE]: There is no contradiction. Segev: The day when the state was declared is considered by them as a day of mourning. [ . . . ] Yesterday a sticker was distributed at the University of Haifa that says: “Today is the fifth anniversary of the blessed Palestinian Intifada.” On the same day three victims of the Intifada were buried. [ . . . ] Zayyad: Send them to jail. What do you want?

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Segev: If we will not bash the head of the snake while it is still young, a latent intifada will erupt among the Arab Israelis, and we will not know how to stop it. I am calling on the Minister of Education to impose order on the chaos that prevails in the institutions of higher education and in schools. I would like to remind everyone that we live in the Land of Israel, in the home of the Jewish people. I demand that Campus be outlawed and that the activity of Campus members in the universities in Israel be forbidden.

The proceedings of this parliamentary session were symptomatic of the evolving atmosphere in Israel in the 1990s. It seems that for some Jewish politicians the mere existence of the Palestinian narrative was a surprise, while for others its public appearance was a threat. Segev himself was worried as well about the similarity between the Campus calendar and the calendar of the Palestinian national movement outside Israel. The sarcastic reaction of MK Zayyad (i.e., “jail them”) clarified that the arsenal of legitimate methods to confront this narrative was by then limited. The Knesset voted against Segev’s demand,39 and for the next nine years there was no recorded attempt by legislators to clip the wings of Palestinian national commemoration inside Israel. NEW MODES OF DISCIPLINING MEMORY

The change described above does not mean that during the 1990s Palestinians in Israel were completely free to write their own narrative or to commemorate their national past without interruption. The Shabak was still involved in nominating employees in the education system, and Arab formal education continued to be strictly monitored (see Chapter 8). Organized visits to the ruins of Palestinian villages in the 1990s sometimes faced police interference, and violent confrontations took place. Officials of the Israel Land Authority embarked on a large-scale operation of fencing off abandoned Arab structures and erecting large signs that warned against trespassing.40 The decision of the FUC to commemorate the Nakba spurred threats from the Israeli government. Having said that, before the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, these public threats were vague and relatively minor in their tone. This dynamic prevailed, however, only as long as it was accompanied by a decline in the level of existential anxiety on the Jewish side. The events of October 2000 and the Second Intifada, on the other hand, quickly interfered with the gradual processes of strengthening Jewish Israeli self-confidence. Historian Tom Segev, who celebrated post-Zionism in a book published shortly before the Intifada, wrote

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after its eruption: “Palestinian terrorism seems to push Israelis back into the ­Zionist womb,”41 and the “Zionist womb” opposes Palestinians commemorating their tragic past. Indeed, the dominance of the Zionist ideology among Jews in Israel, which has always been high, increased in the first decade of the twenty-first century.42 At the same time, it became impossible to restore the old state practices of disciplining memory, which were blocked by a combination of several sociopolitical developments. During the 1990s Palestinian civil society inside Israel grew and rapidly became institutionalized to create a strong web of self-confident civil activism.43 This development was part of a global process of the accelerated development of civil society organization in different countries.44 Many organizations directly or indirectly dealt with establishing the public presence of a Palestinian national narrative,45 and these organizations developed effective skills in obtaining the protection of the Israeli legal system. This development has been accompanied by a generational change. The demographic weight of the generation whose consciousness was shaped under the strict disciplinary power of the military rule has been decreased and toward the beginning of the twentyfirst century, Palestinian citizens with no biographical memories of the period of military rule have been gradually occupying key positions in political parties, NGOs, and municipalities. This generation carries a different generational “habitus” and demonstrates a greater readiness to defy the authorities.46 In addition, the Internet and satellite TV have made the flow of information more difficult to control by the state and have strengthened the links of Palestinians in Israel to the Arab world.47 In my 2008 survey I asked respondents to identify the main source of their historical knowledge. Among Arab respondents, 24 percent mentioned television, and 16 percent mentioned the Internet;48 among Jewish respondents, only 14 percent mentioned television and 6 percent mentioned the Internet. These gaps suggest that for Palestinian citizens, new technologies were especially important given their mistrust of the state-sponsored school system and highlight as well the greater potential of this media to cross the borders between Israel and its neighbors. Furthermore, in 2008 the Qatar-based Arab satellite TV, al-Jazeera, was much more popular than any Israeli channel,49 and this development is meaningful: a 2009 survey conducted by Smooha revealed a clear-cut association between watching the satellite channel al-Jazeera and participating in commemorative events. Among those who said that they watch al-Jazeera “every day” or “­frequently,” 49 percent reported participating at least once in an event

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commemorating the Nakba, and 46 percent reported participating in Land Day events at least once. Among those who watch al-Jazeera “seldom” or “­almost never,” the numbers were 21 and 24 percent, respectively.50 Obviously, these numbers are not evidence of causality, but they do suggest at least an elective affinity between the content of al-Jazeera and the sphere of Palestinian national commemoration. The following story illustrates the inability of the old state disciplinary mechanisms to deal with these new developments. As mentioned earlier, a major source of power of the Palestinian community in Israel is the relative autonomy of local councils that support and sometimes initiate commemorative events. In Israel, when a local council or mayor fails to run their town or city, the Minister of Interior is authorized to dismantle the council or to dismiss the mayor and to nominate a temporary committee and a temporary mayor. Only Jewish temporary mayors have been appointed so far to run failed Jewish councils whereas in failed Arab localities, most temporary appointees are Jewish as well. On 25 December 2007, due to the complete failure of the local council of Kafr Kana, the Minister of Interior nominated a temporary mayor. Five months later in May 2008 the local branch of the Islamic Movement planned to celebrate the birthday of the prophet Muhammad and to commemorate the Nakba at the same event in the local soccer stadium. They submitted a routine request to the local council and to the police. They received police approval but were astonished to receive a negative answer from the state-appointed council. ­According to the council, “this is a political event and it is forbidden by the law.”51 A popular committee in the town organized a protest and called on residents to boycott Ilan Gavrieali, the appointed temporary mayor, who was ­Jewish. A flyer the committee distributed stated, “We will not allow the military government to return to Kafr Kana.” The committee members also appealed to the district court in Nazareth to overrule the council’s decision. The appeal was accepted, and the event took place as planned. THE DISCIPLINING CIVIC GAZE

The court’s decision in favor of the Kafr Kana Islamic Movement was a stark illustration that the old methods used to discipline Palestinian memory, namely, arbitrary decisions by state functionaries that are not necessarily backed by the rule of law, had lost their legitimacy. However, certain forces in Israeli society have been trying to reinstate the undermined disciplinary power of the state. These attempts have been carried out by an increasingly present voluntary

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“civic gaze” of ordinary citizens backed by new legislation and public intimidation by certain functionaries in the legislative and executive branches. For Michel Foucault, the gaze imposes disciplinary practices that inscribe identities upon docile bodies.52 Foucault’s original thesis referred to specific agents and specific kinds of surveillance modes, which direct their scrutinizing gaze to specific individuals. Foucault’s panopticon metaphor, which symbolizes this ever-present institutional gaze, certainly fits the reality of the military government. Furthermore, the military government’s long shadow, although fading, still deters many Palestinians in Israel from attacking sacred cows of the Zionist ethos.53 The Jewish civic gaze on Arab public behavior, however, is much less institutionalized, and its sources are only vaguely identifiable. This civic gaze should not be confused with the phenomenon of self-appointed informers, namely, citizens who voluntarily report to the security services about other citizens. Instead, the agents of this civic gaze themselves act to correct the subject’s behavior. In addition, the civic gaze is not focused; rather, it is a consistent, random scrutinizing of the public sphere without pre-determined attention to specific individuals. Nevertheless, it is still effective as a disciplinary mechanism. The Jewish civic disciplinary gaze is as old as the state of Israel, and it has functioned from the very moment Arabs met Jews under the post-1948 imbalance of power. However, because of the effectiveness of state-controlled disciplinary practices in the specific field of political commemoration, most Jewish citizens never encountered commemorative events organized by Arab citizens. Palestinian political commemoration has taken place almost exclusively inside Arab towns and villages, with the exception of events held in mixed university settings. Since 2000, though, because Palestinian political memory has become increasingly public and more determined to broach topics sensitive for Jews in Israel, Jewish citizens gradually and increasingly have paid attention to these events and have expressed a readiness to correct “diversions” from the dominant Zionist narrative. Until 2005, this Jewish civic monitoring and opposition was located mainly in the universities, where sporadic clashes between Arab and Jewish students occurred.54 In recent years, however, confrontations between Arab commemorators and Jewish counter-demonstrators occurred in other contexts. On 17 June 2005, about 150 people, most of them Arab-Palestinian citizens, marched from the old prison in Acre to the Muslim cemetery in the city. They were commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the execution of Hijazi, Jamjum, and al-Zir by British authorities (See Chapter 1).55 On the way to the

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cemetery, some Arab merchants played the song “Min sijn ‘Akka,” based on the lyrics of the Palestinian poet Nuh Ibrahim. After entering the old city, the participants were surprised to encounter a group of Jewish Israeli yeshiva students waving Israeli flags and holding large signs bearing the word “traitors.” Subsequent short reports about the march in some Hebrew news websites sparked furious reactions from Jewish readers,56 who interpreted the commemoration as praise for the massacres for which the three men were executed. The protest in Acre was an important landmark because it reflected two important processes in Jewish-Arab mixed cities. First, since the turn of the twenty-first century, religious Zionist groups have made efforts to settle these cities, with an explicit agenda to Judaize and de-Arabize them. Clashes between them and the local population have been frequent.57 Second, due to the growing confidence of Palestinian activists, Palestinians are increasingly undertaking events of national commemorations in these cities, and conflicts with Jewish citizens around these commemorations have become common. In recent years, even the Nakba has been publicly commemorated in mixed Arab-Jewish cities. The modest event organized in Lydda in 2006 faced a Jewish counter-demonstration organized by some right-wing members of the local council under the banner “Flags for Israel.” One member wrapped in an Israeli flag addressed the participants and warned that: “Commemorating the Nakba by the Arabs of Israel is a denial of the mere existence of the State of Israel, and whoever denies our right to live in peace and security cannot complain that we do not accept him for a job, cannot complain that he is not allowed family unification, cannot be surprised that we check him from head to toe when he enters the bus, and should not be surprised if he is not welcome to live near us.”58 Interestingly, every element in this multidimensional threat has been identified by the sociologist Areej Sabbagh-Khoury as deterring Palestinian citizens in ­Israel from protesting against issues considered taboo by Jewish Israelis: the economic dependency on the Jewish side, the tendency to give priority to issues concerning their daily lives, and finally, the fear of another expulsion, shaped by the remembrance of the Nakba.59 “Domination Is Not a Nice Word”

The social anthropologist Paul Connerton has noted that commemorative ceremonies are frequently “re-enactments of the past, its return in a representational guise which normally includes a simulacrum of the scene or situation recaptured.”60 The Palestinian March of Return discussed in Chapter 3 is an

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example of the exact opposite: the creation of a mirror image of the past, where the commemorative practice embodies a reversal of the event that is commemorated, namely, the expulsion. The Jewish Israeli anxiety over this reversal can explain much of the reactions among Jewish citizens to the annual march. From an early stage, the march had the potential for friction with the Jewish public and the state. This friction became inevitable both spatially and temporally. Spatially, many Jewish settlements were established on the ruins of Palestinian villages (sometimes with the intention of preventing the return of dispossessed residents). Temporally, the choice of Israel’s Independence Day for the march has been perceived by many Jewish Israelis as a provocation. In 2007, for the first time, a group of Jewish citizens came to confront the March of Return. The group, identified in the Arabic press as “right wing activists,”61 came to one of the gathering points at the beginning of the march and confronted the participants with their own slogans. An Arab journalist who photographed them was attacked and his camera was broken. The police intervened before further escalation took place. The following year, shortly before the planned annual march, Danny Danon, the chair of World Likud (the international branch of Israel’s ruling party), sent a letter to the Israeli Minister of Interior demanding that he ban the march.62 During the march itself, which took place on 8 May 2008, a group of Jewish activists organized a counter-demonstration. At the invitation of a new organization named Ha-Shomer he-Hadash (the new guardian), several hundred people came to a massive picnic at the Jewish cooperative settlement of Tsipori that had been established in 1949 on the land of the depopulated village of Safuriye. The route of the march was thereby obstructed because on its way to Safuriye, it was slated to go through Tsipori. Ha-Shomer he-Hadash was founded in early 2008 by Jewish ranchers from the Lower Galilee who felt that the state had failed to protect them against trespassing and looting. Although their point of departure seems to be related to mere protection of private property, their struggle is articulated in the typical ethno-nationalist discourse of a settler society, and it is consciously contextualized in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their name echoes the name of the pre-state para-military organization, Ha-Shomer, founded to “conquer”63 the jobs of Arab guards in the Jewish settlements. Symbolically, their first country-wide meeting was scheduled for Land Day (30 March 2008). At this meeting, the chair, Yoel Zilberman, said: “An all-out war is managed every day and every hour over the national land of all of us; there is a need to

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return to national pride, patriotism, and Zionism, and to make sure that the ranchers will learn to be courageous and proud.”64 Several weeks later, Ha-Shomer he-Hadash organized the protest against the Nakba commemoration in Tsipori. The event itself was not officially defined as a protest but as a counter-celebration, and the official title was “­Celebrating independence—in the face of the Nakba events.” The event itself deteriorated into a violent confrontation between the Arab participants and the police. There were injuries on both sides, and thirty-one Arab demonstrators were arrested (all of them were released later without trial). The police interrogated some of the organizers of the march for about an hour including the chairman of the Committee of the Uprooted Wakim Wakim and the spokesman ­Suleiman Fahmawi. In subsequent years, the police were careful to create a safe distance between the two sides. In 2009 the March of Return marched to the remnants of the village Kafrin, and the celebration of Ha-Shomer he-Hadash was made on an adjacent hill. The two camps were close enough to see each other but distant enough to avoid any direct confrontation. I went back and forth between the two events interviewing participants on both sides until the police stopped me from doing so. The title chosen for the 2009 counter-celebration by Ha-Shomer he-­Hadash was “Celebrating Independence—Without Fear.” This is an ironic title because from my conversations with the organizers and participants, fear, and the anxiety of being perceived as fearful, emerged as a major, driving sentiment. “­Silence means fear,” Yoel Zilberman, the movement’s founder and a resident of Tsipori, told me in justifying the need to counter-celebrate. “A march of fifteen thousand into Tsipori—we evaluated it as the beginning of an intifada, as a very clear statement [ . . . ] this is a statement that this village was an Arab village and it will be again. [ . . . ] There is a silent intifada in the Galilee. Just a week ago there was a conference here and they talked there about ‘a state of all its citizens’ and Arab autonomy in the Galilee. They talk about it as a self-evident reality.”65 The participants in the 2009 counter-celebration who answered my questions about what drove them to participate in this organized practice of collective civic gaze reverberated this fear: “We are here because we fear losing this country”; “I fear that one day we won’t be able to come to these regions.” One of the participants, a 19-year-old boy, told me that he was there to “demonstrate presence.” “Why is it so important that they see you?” I asked. “It is a sort of showing domination . . . ” he answered but after a short pause, he added, “well,

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not domination; domination is not a nice word. It is to show a counter-action.” His words represented the dilemma of the post-2000 era—the fear that led to the drive to dominate, which in its turn meets awareness that “domination” is not politically correct anymore. This sensitivity of Jewish citizens is taken into account by the organizers of the March of Return. Through preliminary meetings each year, the organizers invest great effort in disciplining the expressions of protest to ensure that the slogans and signs will not put the march in danger of being interpreted as a provocation or in violation of any law.66 From the organizers’ point of view, an event like the burning of an Israeli flag (which did occur once, in 2001) might jeopardize their entire project. In addition, the mapping of the exact path of every annual march is dictated partly by the desire to avoid potential conflicts with Jewish residents of the existing settlement built on the village’s lands. As a case in point, one of the founders of the Committee of the Uprooted, ‘Abed Nimarnah, has refrained so far from taking the march to his own village of origin, Mi‘ar. The reason is his reluctance to risk the positive relationship that he has been able to establish with residents of the Jewish settlement of Ya‘ad that exists today on Mi‘ar’s land. In 2003 Nimarnah and other descendants of Mi‘ar’s uprooted residents were alarmed by a plan to expand Ya‘ad into areas of Mi‘ar that included the village cemetery. Together with a group of Ya‘ad residents and the Zochrot organization,67 they appealed to state a­ uthorities. In February 2004 the Regional Building and Planning Committee partially accepted the appeal. Subsequently, the assembly of the Ya‘ad residents decided not to build in areas beyond the new boundaries defined by the regional committee, and they agreed to build a fence around the cemetery as well. These events triggered a continuous dialogue between the people of Mi‘ar and Ya‘ad. Nimarnah said that he was “not willing to risk the achievements. The vision of thousands of Arabs marching with Palestinian flags and shouting slogans might scare the people of Ya‘ad.”68 This is not the only case where Jewish sensitivities influenced the path of the march. In 2011 there was a controversy between committee members regarding the location of that year’s march. In a press interview two months before the march, the committee’s spokesman, Suleiman Fahmawi, said that the destination that year would be the emptied village of Hittin in the eastern Galilee.69 This plan was later rejected by Chairman Wakim Wakim, who argued that it might bring the participants in confrontation with the residents of the Jewish village of Kfar Hitim, or even with the residents of a Druze village in the area.70 In the end

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the march proceeded to the remains of destroyed villages al-Damun and Rweis, ­located far from any main road or Jewish locality. Even then, the discussion in the Committee of the Uprooted in preparation for the march revealed the concerns of some of the members. One member said: “In the previous march in Damun and Rweis, a masked person came and burned a flag of the State of Israel. We should protect ourselves from all these things. In Birweh [where the march took place in 2002] similar things happened. In my opinion, the program that will be distributed [should state]: ‘If you want to come [to the event as it is presented] welcome, if you don’t want—you shouldn’t come. This is the program.’ This person should not come to create provocation inside the demonstration.”71 PUBLIC INTIMIDATIONS

In some contexts, the civic gaze can be effective only if everyone involved is aware that it represents the interests of the state, which is, for its part, ready to use its own disciplinary mechanism. In the post-2000 years, Palestinian citizens increasingly have been seen by the Israeli security services as an existential threat to the Jewish state. The level of anxiety was manifested in the description of the current processes in Arab society in Israel as the “real strategic danger in the long term.” This quote comes from a closed discussion of Shabak senior advisers with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2007 and was carefully chosen for release to the press.72 Nevertheless, the post-2000 modes of disciplining memory are not necessarily part of an organized and coordinated plan. Their main characteristic is their public visibility. Politicians, whether in office or aspiring to office, make public declarations that have the potential to deter Palestinian citizens from organizing or participating in commemorative events. Sometimes these declarations are explicit threats, but the intimidator cannot always follow through; therefore, their main, potential effect is in creating an intimidating public environment. For example, in May 2001, before the first Independence Day anniversary after the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada, the newly-appointed Minister of National Infrastructure, Avigdor Lieberman, instructed the ministry’s functionaries to avoid any contact with public figures who participated in Nakba commemorations. The Ministry of National Infrastructure has a large budget, and being denied access to its resources could seriously impede Arab municipalities. Lieberman justified his decision by a need to “punish public figures who turn Independence Day into a Day of Holocaust.”73 Three months later, the Minister of Education, Limor Livnat, declared that she was considering making the allocation of bonuses and extra funding to schools conditional on

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the schools being “loyal to the state.” Livnat explained that “schools that commemorate Nakba Day, or raise the Palestinian flag and celebrate after terrorist attacks, should not receive bonuses.”74 Livnat went to the media with her new ideas before consulting the ministry’s legal advisors.75 In both cases, the legality of the newly-declared policies was dubious,76 and there is no evidence that either policy was officially implemented. However, the importance of these statements is mainly in the atmosphere they created. Although Lieberman and Livnat were the most explicit in linking commemoration of the past to the distribution of resources in the present, their attitude represents a wider spectrum of the carrot and stick policy frequently articulated by Israeli cabinet ministers. In March 2001, Israeli authorities were especially concerned about Land Day events because of the ongoing Palestinian uprising. To the surprise of many, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed two days before Land Day to approve a full implementation of the development plan for Arab towns, including a general survey of future needs—a step that several previous Israeli governments had refused to approve. Some observers estimated that this decision prevented confrontations during Land Day itself.77 Seven years later in 2008, as part of the preparations for the celebrations of Israel’s sixtieth Independence Day, the Israeli government made efforts to convince Arab municipalities to take part in the celebrations. Arab political leaders were promised that the “celebrations will include financial investment in the infrastructure of the Arab localities.”78 Although we could classify this promise as a “carrot,” the poor infrastructure of most Arab towns and the desperate need for funding for public projects should have given them high priority on the government’s list of supported projects in any case. Therefore, making the support they deserved conditional on obedient political behavior should be seen as another form of “stick” (i.e., a threat). Although the FUC leadership publicly rejected these attempts to “bribe” Arab mayors, in some municipalities the carrot and stick policy seems to be effective. ‘Orsan Yasin, mayor of Shefa‘amr from 1998 to 2008, organized an official Independence Day celebration in his town. Yasin explained his instrumental political philosophy on several occasions: “I had enough of the extremists. We, the moderates, will overpower them. I expect that the Prime Minister will support the moderate Arabs more significantly.”79 In another interview with the Hebrew media he complained: This is our state and we should be part of it. The FUC positions only hurt our lives. We have to find a good way to educate the children to be part of the

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state [ . . . ] The problem is that in spite of what I am doing for the state, I am not being backed up. The attitude [of the government] to Shefa‘amr is like [its] attitude to Umm el-Fahm. We should receive different treatment so that everyone will go in my direction.80

Yasin might have been unique in his overt instrumentalism, but it is possible that he could also represent a wider phenomenon. After all, the government was able to recruit two Arab Muslim mayors to sit on the advisory board of the sixtieth anniversary celebration (Sami ‘Isa from Kafr Qasim and Talal al-Qirnawi from Rahat). Some public intimidations inhabit the twilight zone of bizarre politics and potential crimes against humanity. On 3 December, 2007, the Israeli Knesset gathered for a special festive session to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the UN decision to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Arab MKs boycotted this event, provoking furious reactions from some Jewish MKs. Two days later, the FUC chair, Shawqi Khatib, informed the Israeli government that Arab municipalities would not take part in the celebrations of Israel’s sixtieth Independence Day. “We are not part of these festivals,” he stated. “The State of Israel was founded on the ruins of the Palestinian people.”81 Following this decision the Minister of Public Security and former head of the Shabak, Avi Dichter, declared, “Whoever cries about the Nakba year after year shouldn’t be surprised if they actually have a Nakba eventually.” He called on Israeli-Arab leaders to reconsider their decision not to take part in the celebrations. In the same context, the minister attacked the mere use of the term “Nakba,” and argued that it harms the Arab public: “From the Nakba they will not get any better education, from the Nakba they will not get better economic opportunities.”82 These threats were made before an Arab audience at the opening ceremony of the first Arab branch of the Kadima party in a non-Jewish locality, in Shefa‘amr. The municipal official turned scholar Meron Benvenisti opined in Haaretz that “only paranoia and a repressed feeling of guilt could produce” this kind of statement.83 Only eight years earlier, in 2000, Ami Ayalon, Dichter’s predecessor in the Shabak (1996–2000), recognized that “their [the Palestinians’] Nakba accompanies them as a trauma in the same way that the Holocaust accompanies us,” an empathic statement diametrically opposite to Dichter’s approach. Although the difference between these two statements is related to differences in personalities and politics, it might capture as well the changes in the level of “Nakba anxiety” in Israel’s main surveillance agency since 2000.

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OUTLAWING COMMEMORATION

When Turkish authorities are interested in silencing voices that describe the 1915 mass atrocities against the Armenians as genocide, they can use an existing clause in the penal code that forbids “insulting Turkishness.”84 In Romania, on the other hand, the attempt of the nationalist Romanian mayor of Cluj to ban the public celebration of the 15 of March Hungarian national holiday in his city failed,85 since such a ban was incompatible with post-communist Romanian law. Israeli politicians who have tried to restrict Palestinian commemoration of the Nakba since the beginning of the twenty-first century might be anxious like the Turkish authorities, but like the Romanian mayor, they have not been able to find a clause in the penal code to support a ban. Thus, recognizing that the authorities’ ability to discipline commemoration of the Nakba is restricted by the rule of law, Israeli politicians have been involved in recurrent legislative attempts to outlaw Nakba commemoration. In July 2001, four Jewish MKs from different right-wing parties submitted a bill aimed at amending the Independence Day Law. According to the proposed amendment, a person who commemorated Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning would be jailed for one year or fined 100,000 New Israeli Shekels. The bill was rejected by the Knesset Assembly, and in the following years it was resubmitted and rejected several times. In 2009, however, the government adopted a softened version of this legislation, which was approved by the Knesset in March 2011 and became known as the Nakba Law. According to the amended bill, the Minister of Finance is authorized to halt public funding for organizations (read: Arab municipalities) who support the commemoration of “Israel’s Independence Day or the day of its establishment as a day of mourning.” Note that the law is phrased in such a way that even the commemoration of Nakba Day on 15 May (rather than on Independence Day) would justify punishment. Some of the legislators who initiated this law genuinely believed that they had the power to shape the collective memory of the Palestinians in Israel. One of them, MK Alex Miller (Yisrael Beiteinu), a Russian-born politician who immigrated to Israel in 1992, told me: I want to change by this law the way that people, citizens in this state, think [ . . . ] At the end of the day if you remove the big events from the agenda, the thought would begin to change. From the moment that young people are not part of it and do not participate in those things, they think differently [ . . . ] There is an entire population that every year on a certain day commemorates a catastrophe

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of this state [sic]. It’s time to put an end to it and I think that this is the way [ . . . ] I do not think that all the young Arabs who participate in the Nakba events understand what the whole turmoil is about. Are their conditions so bad that it is such a disaster? They should look at their neighbors, their families who live on the other side, how successful they are and how well they live.86

Miller seems to be unaware of the irony in his argument—it is exactly when Palestinians in Israel look at their families on “the other side” that they are reminded of the expulsions of 1948 that split families irreparably. Although he is aware of the tremendous importance of the Internet and satellite TV, he still believes in the urgency to “disconnect the opinion of the former [generation] from the generation that replaces it,” as well as in his ability to impose this disconnection. To what extent was this legislation effective in deterring Arab citizens from commemorating the Nakba during Independence Day? It is difficult to isolate the peculiar influence of each mode of discipline, especially since the old disciplinary mechanisms have not completely disappeared.87 Still, the sharp decline in the presence of Arab mayors at the March of Return in the four years following the initial governmental adoption of the Nakba Law in 2009 suggests that this legislation has had at least some impact already. In fact, only one Arab mayor participated in the March of Return in 2010, and the visible absence of the rest provided the main headline of the Arabic newspaper Kul al-‘Arab. The newspaper even explicitly commented that the mayors were concerned with losing state funding for their councils.88 The absence of Arab mayors was noticeable again in 2012 and 2013 and was again highlighted by Arabic newspapers. At the same time, there is no evidence of a decline in the number of participants in the march, and many members of various Arab municipal councils do participate in the annual march. Furthermore, the preparatory committee of the march in 2010 convened at the city hall of Tira, signaling that this local mayor was not concerned about the potential consequence of defying the new law. After the March of Return in 2011, the Jewish mayor of Natseret ‘Ilit (a settlement near Nazareth where 13 percent of its residents are Arab), Shim‘on Gapso, demanded that the two Arab representatives in the city hall resign following their participation in the march.89 THE CHANGING MODE OF DISCIPLINE

The anxiety of the state authorities and the Jewish public regarding the public appearance of a Palestinian national narrative has led to continuous attempts to

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discipline the public display of Palestinian political memory and to contain it. In the first decades after 1948, this discipline was imposed mainly by strict monitoring by the security services and even by forcing Arabs to publicly adopt the Zionist narrative. As the Jews’ siege mentality abated and Arab self-confidence and organizational ability increased in the 1980s and 1990s, elements of the Palestinian national narrative gained more public visibility. The Second Intifada reversed the direction of abating Nakba anxiety, but it was too late to restore the old modes of disciplining memory. Instead of strict monitoring by the security services, however, Palestinian memory in Israel is monitored by the watchful civic gaze of ordinary citizens and its bearers are subject to public intimidation by government officials and to restrictive legislation. These modes are not completely ineffective but they are far from pushing national historical remembrance back to the private sphere. There is one sphere, however, where the shadow of the military government is still more evident: the formal education system. Palestinian parties and organizations in Israel have looked for creative ways to bypass, alter, or confront it. This is the topic of the next two chapters.

8

THE STRUGGLE OVER THE NEXT GENERATION

several weeks after the tenth Land Day anniversary in 1986, the lawyer Tawfiq Abu Ahmad, chair of the Parent Committee in Nazareth, sent a letter to the general director of the Ministry of Education, with a daring request: To commemorate Land Day in all Israeli schools on 30 March every year. Abu Ahmad justified his request: “Land Day has become a symbol of the just struggle of the Arab citizens of Israel for equal rights and freedom, democracy, patriotism, and above all, peace between the two peoples in this land. The education for these values would contribute, beyond any doubt, to reducing tension, social harmony, and co-existence in mutual respect between the two peoples.”1 Abu Ahmad was walking on a very fine line. The compulsory education system has been a major sphere of struggle over identity and historical remembrance between the State of Israel and its Palestinian minority. Arab or Palestinian national narratives have been excluded from the official curriculum, and the job security of teachers and directors has been dependent on keeping a safe distance from this narrative.2 His presentation of Land Day as a symbol of peace between the two peoples might have genuinely reflected his view, or it might have been merely a tactical move aimed to introduce the Palestinian national narrative into the official curriculum. Anyway, there is no doubt that he knew that only by disconnecting Land Day from any association with Palestinian nationalism could he expect to find listening ears in this Ministry of Education. This careful approach did not help. Four weeks later he received a very short response from Eli‘ezer Shmueli, the general director: “I do not find the idea in your letter compelling, and I do not believe that there is a chance to implement it.” 163

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Abu Ahmad’s initiative represented an emerging tendency, gradually developing since the late 1970s. Palestinian parents, educators, NGOs, and political parties, advanced diverse initiatives and developed various tools aimed at bypassing, altering, or confronting the curriculum of the formal education system. The authorities, on their part, developed their own strategies to monitor, discipline, or contain these initiatives. In general, states tend to be reluctant to give up their control of public education. As the sociologist Ernest Gellner noted years ago, none of the modern political ideals (such as an independent judiciary, freedom of speech and assembly, and so forth), are taken as seriously by states as the principle of universal and centrally guaranteed ­education.3 Although Gellner attributed this uniqueness to the need of industrial societies for a generic and standardized form of education, there is substantial evidence that mass public education serves the interests of political domination as well.4 As several Gramsci-inspired scholars have pointed out, public education is a crucial tool in establishing political hegemony, a form of domination achieved by making the existing social order seem like common sense.5 In that vein, Arab public education in Israel aimed at making the State of Israel, as well as the separation of the Palestinians in Israel from other Palestinians, part of an unquestionable reality. Unlike the “nationalizing states” of central Europe,6 the State of Israel has never been interested in assimilating or “Israelifying” Arab students. Because inclusion in the Israeli nation was conditioned on Jewishness, Israel did not try to impose education in Hebrew on its Arab citizens, and the need for separate public education in Arabic was self-evident. At the same time, the existence of a separate Arab educational system required a highly elaborated system of surveillance and monitoring. Through the Ministry of Education and the security services, successive Israeli governments implemented a centralized monitoring of the curriculum and the employees of the Arab schools. Most significantly, in the particular field of teaching history, the Israeli state’s policy in the first years after 1948 can be described as an attempt to reset historical consciousness. During those years, the Department of Arab Education (DAE), which was established within the Ministry of Education, completely purged all teaching materials that existed prior to the foundation of the state and then forced Arab students to study from state-approved books only.7 Tens of thousands of copies of school books captured by I­ sraeli forces in Jaffa and Haifa were shredded.8 The DAE organized retraining courses for Arab teachers whose main field of focus was teaching history.9 From the au-

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thorities’ point of view, those teaching Arab history and culture to Arab students had to be careful not to contribute to the development of Arab national sentiments. This dilemma is epitomized by a sentence that appeared in 1957 in an internal correspondence of the Ministry of Education regarding the goals of Arab education: “Instruction of history—to give the students knowledge of Arab history and culture accompanied by the feeling that they are not one people.”10 After the end of military rule in 1966, Israeli state institutions continued to monitor Arab formal education. Despite the introduction of some changes in the 1970s, the official curriculum still ignored the Palestinian national narrative,11 and the security service was still directly involved in hiring and firing teachers and directors. Since the late 1980s, neo-liberal policies and practices in Israel introduced a certain degree of decentralization and privatization in the educational system. At the same time, however, the state has increased its involvement in educational affairs by dictating the goals of education; setting uniform standards of scholastic achievements; and most important for our discussion, by imposing a national value system intended to produce loyal citizens.12 Although this policy affects the entire Israeli education system, it has been especially evident in Arab schools where the surveillance of the Ministry of Education continues to be coordinated with the Shabak. During the 1990s, three education ministers from the left-wing Meretz party attempted to reduce the Shabak’s involvement in authorizing nominations of teachers and school directors, but they had only limited success.13 The fact that during the relatively liberal 1990s, the state still was reluctant to reduce surveillance or to release its centralizing and monopolizing grip on Arab public education further encouraged Palestinian parents, educators, and activists to fight over the curriculum or to suggest alternatives to it. In this struggle over education, all sides assume that the formal education system is an important sphere for shaping the historical remembrance and identity of the younger generation. Hence, before discussing the struggle itself, let us take a look at some indicators of the validity of this assumption. WHAT IS AT STAKE?

In my 2008 survey I asked the interviewees to state what they considered to be the main source of their historical knowledge. While among Jews “school” was ranked at the top with 22 percent who considered it their main source of historical knowledge, among Arab interviewees it was ranked only fifth with 13.4 per-

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cent, lagging behind television, Internet, books, and family (Figure 6). Similar results were found when the interviewees were asked to list all of the sources of their historical knowledge. Among Jews, 53.5 percent mentioned school, while among Arabs only 28.7 percent mentioned it. These results clearly confirm that Palestinian citizens have markedly little trust in the Israeli education system, a fact that no doubt reflects the overbearing state policies discussed above. These numbers, however, do not mean that schools are not influential in shaping the historical remembrance of Palestinians in Israel. Although a causal relationship is impossible to prove in this context, Figure 7 suggests that school attendance might be associated with certain kinds of historical remembrance. In the survey, interviewees were asked to name as many as four persons that they considered as most important in the history of the country. I classified the answers into categories. The two largest categories were Zionist figures and Arab figures. I found that 58.3 percent of those Arab interviewees who selected “school” as the main source of their historical knowledge mentioned at least one Zionist figure (most commonly, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and David Ben Gurion). Among the rest of the Arab sample, the ratio was significantly lower, 44.5 percent (p